m 


^^r:; 


6 ,  f  0  ,^l 


iFrom  tl|?  Ctbrarg  of 

iBpqueatli^b  htf  Ijtm  tn 

tiff  ICtbrarg  of 

Prtnr^ton  SHi^ologtral  &^mt«ary 


^0\AMytAjJL  J/VUnJt4  AO  (r<di^U<.t^  , 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  i8S8,  by 

Rev.  Samuel  Davies  Cochran,  D.  D.,  Normal,  III,, 

In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


electrotype  foundry  of  press  and  btndkry  of 

Pantagrai'h  Stationery  Comi'a'ny.  Pantagraph  Stationery  Company. 

bloomington,  ill.  bloomington,  ill. 


©edleation.   • 


7  ^  URING  all  my  labors  on  this  Work,  there  has  been  one  who, 
-^ —  in  constant  sympathy,  has,  in  all  practicable  ways,  favored 
nic  in  them — one  fully  appreciatii'c  of  its  transcendent  theme,  and 
competent,  by  scholarship  and  knowledge  concerning  it,  to  perceive  and 
tiieigh  the  validity  and  bearing  of  the  successive  positions  and  stages 
in  treating  the  subject,  and  to  express  valinible  Judgments  and  sug- 
gestions respecting  them. 

•    •    •    •    A  jFattljful  Dif£,    .    .    •    . 

she  has  shared  with  me  in  the  grievous  trials  amidst  luhich  most  of 
the  Work  was  wrought  out.  To  her,  therefore,  I  dedicate  it;  and, 
if  it  shall  find  a  useful  place  in  the  literature  of  the  Church,  I 
ivish  it  to  bear    in  its  front,   ivherever  it   goes  or  abides,  the  name, 

•    •    OBumhm  Oaij  (JHoclivau,    •    • 

as  zvorthv  of  the  honoring  regards  of  all  loomen  and  all  men  of 
the   Church  and  the  jvorld. 

SAMUEL  DA  VIES  COCHRAN. 

Normal,  Illinois. 


EXPLANATORY  PREFACE. 

Somewhat  over  twenty-one  years  ago,  I  received,  through  another, 
an  invitation  from  Prof.  E.  A.  Park,  D.  D.,  of  Andover,  to  write  one 
or  more  Articles  on  the  Atonement  for  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  with 
special  reference  to  Dr.  Bushnell's  Work  entitled  "Vicarious  Sacri- 
fice," which  I  accepted.  Writing  on  the  subject  increased  in- 
sight of  its  grounds  and  rootings  in  the  nature  of  the  moral  sys- 
tem, and  unfolded  comprehension  of  "what  is  the  breadth  and 
length  and  height  and  depth"  both  of  the  "love  of  Christ  which 
passeth  knowledge,"  and  of  the  relations  of  His  atonement  to  God 
and  His  universal  society  for  the  salvation  of  man.  About  two- 
thirds  of  Part  I.  and  some  of  Part  H.  were  written  at  Grinnell,  Iowa, 
during  some  more  than  two  years  before  April,  1869,  when,  in  an 
evil  hour,  I  resigned  my  Pastorship  there  to  undertake  the  founding 
of  a  College  at  Kidder,  Missouri.  That  enterprise  so  absorbed  my 
time  that  this  Work  was  almost  wholly  suspended,  till  in  June,  1874, 
when,  being  wronged  out  of  my  College,  I  resumed  and  prosecuted 
it  as  persistently  as  possible,  amidst  numerous  hindrances,  until  in 
the  early  part  of  1878,  when,  about  twelve  years  after  it  was  begun, 
I  wrote  Finis.  Before  I  left  Grinnell,  I  decided  to  write  a  Book, 
instead  of  the  Article  or  Articles  at  first  designed;  and  if  I  had 
remained  there,  the  Work  would  have  been  completed  within  three 
or  four  years  from  that  time. 

From  the  time  of  its  completion  in  1878,  till  near  the  close  of 
1880,  in  the  beginning  of  which  year  I  moved  to  this  place  to  be 
Pastor  of  a  small  Church  here,  the  Work  lay  dormant.  Meanwhile 
I  decided  to  revise  it  thoroughly.  The  task  thus  assumed,  wiiich 
proved  nearly  equal  to  the  first  writing  of  the  whole,  I  began  in  the 
latter  part  of  that  year,  supposing  it  would  require  about  a  year,  in 
which  I  was  much  mistaken.  I  remained  Pastor  over  two  years 
after  resuming  it;  but  could  work  at  it  only  as  Pastoral  duties 
permitted,   and  mainly   while  others  slept.      I  closed   the  Pastor- 


iv  EXPLAXATORY  PREFACE. 

ship  in  the  Spring  of  1883;  and,  from  that  time,  except  from  Sep- 
tember of  1885  to  October  of  1886,  which  time  I  spent  in  writing 
another  Work,  I  devoted  myself  to  it,  when  not  prevented  by  neces- 
sary interruptions,  till,  on  the  evening  of  April  15,  1887,  at  9:27 
o'clock,  I  again  wrote  Finis  under  its  last  sentence.  I  wrote  Chap- 
ters I.  and  V.  almost  entirely  new,  and  rewrote  nearly  all  the  rest, 
putting  in,  leaving  out,  and  altering  paragraphs,  sections,  sentences, 
clauses,  and  terms,  and  re-examined  every  position  and  point  with 
utmost  care.  No  one,  I  think,  can  suppose  I  have  written  the  Work 
of  so  many  solid  years  for  money.  Those  years  and  labors  have 
been  spent  on  it  for  the  sake  of  the  truth,  of  God,  of  Christ,  and  of 
the  souls  of  my  fellow-men.  I  greatly  need  money,  and  if  this  book 
shall  bring  me  any,  it  will  be  thankfully  welcomed;  but,  if  it  essen- 
tially aids  in  vindicating  and  confirming  the  truth  among  men, 
•*  according  to  the  glorious  Gospel  of  the  blessed  God,"  the  supreme 
end  and  aspiration  of  my  heart  in  the  whole  process  of  writing  the 
Work  will  be  realized  with  joy,  connected  with  humble  gratitude  to 
God  for  having,  as  my  constant  persuasion  has  been,  called  or  con- 
strained me  to  undertake  it,  preserved  my  life  and  overruled  its  con- 
ditions so  long,  that  I  might  prosecute  it,  given  me  tenacity  of 
purpose  and  patience  in  it,  and  guided  me  in  executing  it  to  its  end. 
In  writing  it,  I  have  in  spirit  and  feeling  been  preaching  on  tlie 
fundamental  facts  and  truths  of  Christianity,  and  on  those  involved 
in  and  conditioning  these — thus  on  the  foundations  and  essentials 
of  the  total  Scriptural  revelation  and  Christian  System;  and  while 
there  are  some  places  in  the  Work  perhaps  too  abstract  and  abstruse 
for  common  readers,  not  versed  in  such  discussions,  they  do  not 
probably  exceed  a  tenth  or  twelfth  of  it,  so  that  far  the  most  of  it 
can  easily  be  understood  by  readers  generally.  By  looking  at  the 
Contents  and  Index,  they  can  readily  find  any  particular  Chapter, 
Section,  topic,  or  point,  which  they  may  have  an  interest  in  or 
reason  to  read  or  examine;  and  they  will  be  surprised  to  find  how 
great  a  proportion  there  are  of  such,  after  passing  all  they  may  deem 
unsiiited  to  them.  It  would  be  a  great  mistalce  to  suppose  the  book 
only  fitted  for  theologians.  I  have  sometimes  quoted  Hebrew  and 
Greek,  and  also  Latin  words  and  expressions;  but  I  have  so  given 
their  meanings,  that  no  careful  reader  can  fail  to  understand  these, 
though  unlearned  in  those  languages,  so  that  none  need  be  deterred 
rom  the  book  by  seeing  them  in  it. 

The  main  subject  of  this  Work  has  been  a  chief  study  of  mine 
from  my  youth;  and  all  along  I  have  read  all  the  Works  and  Arti- 


EXPLANATORY  PREFACE.  v 

cles  concerning  it  wliich  have  come  in  my  way.  In  my  writing  uoon 
it,  I  have  taken  nothing  on  trust,  followed  no  leader,  school,  or  sym- 
bol, examined  all  points  for  myself,  and  striven  only  to  ascertain  the 
truth,  as  God  has  revealed  it  in  moral  natures  and  the  inspired 
Scriptures.  I  have  quoted  and  referred  to  only  a  limited  number  of 
the  writers  on  this  theme  with  whom  I  am  familiar  or  that  I  have 
consulted.  My  Work  was  not  designed  to  be  a  history  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  atonement,  but  a  presentation  of  the  truth  concerning 
it;  and,  whatever  of  controversial  it  contains,  I  have  conscientiously 
aimed  to  deal  fairly  with  the  views  opposed,  desiring  only  to  vindi- 
cate and  maintain  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  as  given  to  men  in  the  liv- 
ing Oracles.  The  Work  is  large  beyond  my  wish,  chiefly  on  account 
of  the  expositions  I  have  felt  constrained  to  include  in  it  of  the  Levit- 
ical  Law  of  Sacrifices;  of  the  related  parts  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews;  of  Is.  53;  and  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  5:12-19;  S: 
18-23;  3.nd  9:7-18.  As  my  object  has  been  the  presentation  of  the 
revealed  truth  concerning  the  atonement,  I  have  connected  with  it 
an  exhibition  of  the  essential  facts  and  truths  of  the  whole  redemp- 
tive measure,  because  many  objections  to  it  are  thus  in  advance 
forestalled  and  extinguished.  Hence  the  attention  I  have  devoted 
to  the  Scriptural  teachings  of  the  Trinity,  of  the  Incarnation  of 
Christ,  of  the  peculiar  relations  of  Adam  and  Christ  to  our  race,  of 
the  plans  of  creation  and  redemption,  and  of  God's  foreknowledge, 
purpose,  election,  and  predestination.  In  short,  this  Work  is  on  the 
lofty  range  of  the  law  and  the  universal  moral  society  and  system 
it  constitutes,  of  retributions,  of  moral  government,  and  of  the  whole 
scheme  of  redemption  and  grace,  having  the  atonement  as  its  highest 
peak,  its  most  sublime  and  awful  grandeur. 

That  there  are  points  in  the  Work  on  which  sincere  and  able 
Christian  thinkers  and  theologians  will  disagree  I  anticipate;  and,  if 
important  errors  sliall  be  shown  in  it,  I  will  do  what  I  may  to  cor- 
rect them.  Our  times  are  tumultuous  with  discussions,  denials,  and 
defenses  of  the  essential  doctrines  I  have  canvassed;  and,  if  this  Work 
shall  contribute  important  aid  to  defenders  of  the  truth  against  its 
adversaries,  my  great  object  in  writing  it  will  be  achieved. 

In  giving  the  Work  a  larger  scope  than  was  at  first  designed, 
one  aim  has  been  to  meet  the  objections  and  assumptions  of  infidels 
against  the  atonement  and  Christianity  generally,  as  well  as  those  of 
all  deniers  of  it  or  of  any  essetial  truth  involved  in  it.  If  Part  I.  is 
valid,  there  is  no  salvation  for  sinners  possible,  except  on  its  basis. 
If  it  is  not  valid,  moral  reason  and  conscience  in  all  are  false;  law, 


vi  EXPLANAIOKY  PREFACE. 

justice,  obligation,  duty,  responsibility,  accountability,  natural  and 
moral  rights  and  dues,  good-  and  ill-deserts,  righteousness,  benevo- 
lence, and,  with  all  these,  mercy  and  grace  are  mere  inventions  and 
impostures  of  men,  having  no  basis  in  moral  natures.  Instead  of 
all  these,  all  so-called  morality  is  only  selfishness,  and  this  with  all 
its  offspring  of  vices,  crimes,  antagonisms  and  anarchies,  is  truly 
natural,  and  mankind  are  only  the  highest  grade  of  mere  ferine 
natures.  Praying  the  Great  Head  of  the  Church  to  accept  and 
bless  this  fruit  of  nay  long  labors,  I  now  offer  it  to  the  public. 

SAMUEL  DAVIES  COCHRAN. 

Normal,  III.,  December  20,   1888. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

PART  I. 

The  Moral  Law  and  System. 

CHAPTER  I. 

The  Law  of  God  as  given  in  consciousness  by  Moral  Reason.     A  clear  under- 
standing of  it  necessary  to  that  of  the  Atonement;  and  its  characteristics. 


Section  No. 

1.  Origin  of  the  Divine  Law.        .  .  .  . 

2.  Relation  of  the  Knowledge  of  it  to  that  of  the  .•\tonement. 

3.  First  Characteristic  of  the  Law. 

4.  Second  Characteristic  of  the  Law. 

5.  Third  Characteristic  of  the  Law. 

6.  Fourth  Characteristic  of  the  Law. 

7.  Fifth  Characteristic  of  the  Law. 

8.  Sixth  Characteristic  of  the  Law.     .  .  . 

9.  Seventh  Characteristic  of  the  Law.         .  .  • 

10.  Eighth  Characteristic  of  the  Law. 

11.  Ninth  Characteristic  of  the  Law.  .  . 


Page  No. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ethical  justice  an  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law,  and  of  the  love  it  enjoins  to 
having  rights  to  it.     Ideas  of  this  quality  and  of  right.     How   this  quality 
always  been  estimated  by  mankind. 

Section  No.  ''•''8= 

12.  Nine  Postulates  respecting  Justice  as  a  Quality  of  both  the  Law  and 

the  Love  it  enjoins  to  all  having  Rights  to  it.  . 

13.  What  the  Love  must  be  to  all  having  Rights  to  it. 

14.  The  Love  enjoined  on  each  to  God   and   all  having  Rights  to  it  is 

Just  Love.      .  .  •  •  •  •  • 

15.  How  the  Lituition  of  this  Quality  of  Justice  in  the  Law  and  in  Obedience 

has  led  Men  to  characterize  them.       .  .  .  • 

16.  The  Functions  of  Reason,  and  "the  Idea  of  Right." 

17.  Bushnell's  Notion  of,  and  Inferences  from,  the  Idea  of  Right  absurd. 

18.  The  Law  not  an  Idea  of  any  kind,  and  Distinct  from  those  Connected 

with  it.  .•••••  ■ 

l^.   Confirmations  that  Justice  is  an  essential  Quality  of  the  Law. 
20.  The  estimate  placed  by  Mankind  universally  on  Ethical  Justice. 


all 
has 

No. 

12 
18 

'9 

20 
21 
-5 

29 
29 
3« 


viii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Distinction  between  the  natural  and  tiie  retributive  consequences  of  obedience 
and  of  disobedience,  and  what  the  real  retributive  consequences  are,  with  special 
proofs  and  several  implications  of  all  shown  in  Chapter  I.  and  in  this. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

21.  The  Natural  Consequences  of  Obedience  and  Disobedience.  .  34 

22.  Why  we  call  these  Consequences  Natural.      .  .  .  -37 

23.  The  Retributive  Consequences  of  Obedience  and  Sin.  ,  .  38 

24.  Specially  proved  by  the  Sense  of  Guilt.  .  .  .  -40 

25.  Others  cognizant  of  any  one's  Wrong-doing  have  a  Correlative  Sense 

of  his  Guilt.  .  .  .  .  .  .41 

26.  The  Demand  for  positive  punishment  of  Wrong-doers,  and  the  Satis- 

faction it  gives,  additional  Proofs  that  it  is  the  only  Real  Retribution.         43 

27.  What  True    accordingly    of  rendering    or    not  the    I.ove   required    by 

the  Law.  ......  44 

28.  The  End  of  Justice  that  of  Moral  Love,  and  Retributive  Punishment 

equally  as  Reward  demanded  by  Conscience.  .  .  .46 

29.  Refusing   to  render  to   God  and  all  others  their  Due   of  Moral   Love 

creates  a  correlative  Due  to  them  of  Retributive  Suffering.  .  47 

30.  God  necessarily  Ruler,  and  must  rule  according  to  the  Law.       .  ,     49 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Additional  objections  to  the  theory  that  the  natural  consequences  oT  moral 
action,  good  or  bad,  are  its  retributions,  or  of  them  ;  and  why  the  notion,  that 
God's  government  over  men  and  all  moral  beings  is  only  a  natural  one,  is  absurd. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

31.  Why  these   Consequences   are    defectively    known    by    Men,    unequal, 

not  what  they  deserve,  and  not  Retributions.                       .                  .  5' 

32.  Why  they  are  unadapted  and  incompetent  to  be  the  Law's  Sanctions,  .     53 

33.  As  its  Sanctions,  would  be  in  Conflict  with  its  Intrinsic  Nature.            .  53 

34.  Five  Brief  Objections  to  the  Theory  that  these  Consequences  are  real 

Retributions.  .  .  .  .  .  •     55 

35.  As  far  as  they  consist  in  the  Action  of  Conscience,  must  be  compara- 

tively Slight,  and,  as  Motives,  weak.  .  .  -57 

36.  This  Theory  has  a  ruinous  bearing  on  the  revealed  Character  of  Ciod.  58 

37.  Each  and  all  these  Objections  fatal  to  this  Theory,  whether  Christianity 

is  true  or  false.        ......  60 

38.  Positive  retributory  Punishments  often  Liflicted  in  this  World.  .     6c 

39.  Conflict  of  this  Theory  vv-ith  the  Scriptural  Doctrine  of  the  Final  Judg- 

ment.      .......  62 

40.  Fearfully  damages  the  Character  of  God  as  Ruler  and  as  a  .Moral  Being.         63 

CHAPTER  V. 

Butler's  position  that  God  has  a  natural  government  besides  His  moral, 
examined  and  rejected  ;  also  positions  of  Bushnell. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

41.  Disagreement  with  Butler's  position  respecting  a  Natural  Government 

of  God.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .67 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  jx 

Section  No.  p^^^  jjj,_ 

42.  No  Retributive  Causes  set  in  Moral  Natures,  as  Bushnell  liolds.  .  6S 

43.  A  natural  Government  of  God  over  Moral  Beings  a  natural  Impossi- 

sibility.  .  .  .  .  .  _  .70 

44.  What  Necessary  to  construct  such  a  Government ;   and  mere  Prudence 

not  Moral.  .  .  .  .  .  .71 

45.  God  has  only  one  Government,  and    its  General  Retributions  Follow 

this  Life  of  Probation.  .  .  .  .  -72 

46.  What  this  crude  Naturalism  makes  God,  if  a  Moral  Government  and 

Retributions  are  denied.        .  .  .  .  .74 

47.  God  infinitely  bound  to  have  a  Moral  Government,  and  what,  if  lie 

has  not.  .  .  .  .  .  .  -75 

48.  Three  Citations  relating  to  Points  in  this  Chapter,  hom  Butler,  Martin- 

eau,  and  Matthew  z\rnold.  .  .  .  •11 

CHAPTER  VL 

What  must  be  true  of  the  retributory  punishment  to  be  inflicted  on  all  incor- 
rigible sinners  by  God  as  Ruler  of  the  universal  society  according  to  the  moral 
system. 

Sectio;i  No.  Page  No. 

49.  It  is  not  Disciplinary,  but  the  retributive  Penalty  for  Sin  as  Injustice 

to  God's  universal  and  eternal  Society.                        .                 .  .80 

50.  The  Question,  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  God's  Benevolence,  Answered.  80 

51.  Duration  of  this  Punishment,  and  lU-Dcsert  of  Sinners  its  only  Measure.  82 

52.  True  Meaning  of  the  Wrath  of  God  against  Sinners.            .                 .  83 

53.  Additional    Proof   that    God   can   have   no   Riglit   of  Counsel   and   no 

Liberty,  against  punishing  incorrigible  Sinners  as  they  deserve.  .     84 

54.  Absurdity  of  the  Notion,  that  He  can  have  this  Right  and  Liberty.  86 

55.  What  God's  Design  in  inflicting  this  Punishment  is  not,  and  what  it  is.  87 

56.  Sin  an  Evil  in  itself,  having  intrinsic  Ill-Desert.             .                 .  .88 

57.  No  Plan  or  Measure  of  Redemption  in  God's  Moral  Government.      .  91 

58.  Further  Reasons  why  He  must  inflict  exact  Retributive  Punishment  on 

Sinners  as  they  deserve,  unless  He  can  save  them  through  a  Sub- 
stitution.        .  .  .  .  •  •  -93 

59.  Justice  the   Social    Bond,   tying   all   to  render  reciprocal    Moral   Love 

illustrated.  .  .  ■  •  •  ■  94 

60.  The  principle  of  Ethical  and  Retributive  Justice  the  same.  .  .     96 

61.  No  Sinners  ever  would  or  could  repent,  if  no  Atonement,  even  if  God 

would  forgive  them.  .  .  •  •  -97 

62.  Even  if  they  could,  it  would  be  no  Reparation  for  their  Sins.  .     99 

63.  Position  that  God  and  all  Good   Beings  should  enter   into  Sympathy 

with,  and  go  to  Cost  for.  Sinners,  limited.  .  .  •  »oo 

64.  No  Change  of  Will  and  Character  by  Omnipotence,   no  Annihilation, 

and  the  radical  Fault  of  all  these  Notions.  .  •  .104 


CHAPTER  VH. 

Confirmation  of  the  foregoing  exposition  of  the  law  in  moral  natures,  and  01 
retributions,  by  the  teachings  of  both  the  Testaments  of  Scripture.  God  not 
merely  a  Father,  but  has  and  administers  a  universal  moral  government  No 
probation  after  death. 


X  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

65.  Scriptural  doctrine  of  the  Law  in  the  Moral  Nature  of  Man,  what  and 

what  not.        .......   106 

66.  No  other  Virtue  than  Moral  Love;  this  the  same  in  God,  Angels,  and 

Saints.  ......  109 

67.  God  has  a  Positive  Moral  Government,  and  not  a  merely  Paternal  one.        Ill 

68.  That  God  is  the  Father  of  Mankind  as  Creatures  not  taught  in  the 

Scriptures.  .  .  .  ,  .  .112 

69.  God's   Manifested    Love    and    Character   as   a   Moral    Governor   unap- 

proached  by  what  they  would  be,  were  He  merely  a  Father.  .  113 

70.  That  God  is  Father  of  Mankind  literally  is  absurd,  and  that  His  Gov- 

ernment is  only  Paternal  is  degrading  to  it  and  Him.  .  .116 

71.  The  Scriptural  Doctrine  of   God's  Fatherhood,   and  of    His  real  Chil- 

dien.  ,  .  .  .  .  .  .  117 

72.  Meaning  of   the  word  God,  and  what  the  Scriptures  teach  respecling 

Him  as  a  Moral  Governor.  .  .  .  ,  .118 

73.  No  Probation  after  Death  for  any  of  Mankind  who  die  in  Sin.  .  122 


PART  II. 

The  Mode  of  God's  Existence;  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son;  the  Redemptive  Plan 
and  the  Eternal  Purpose  of  God;  His  For eknozv ledge.  Election,  and  Predes- 
tination in  it. 

CHAPTER,  VIII. 

What  men  may  know  of  God,  and  what  they  cannot,  without  a  special  reve- 
lation from  Him,  and  what  by  that  of  the  Scriptures.  Why  what  they  teach  con- 
cerning the  mode  of  His  existence  should  be  accepted.  Mysteries  respecting 
Him  of  no  weight  against  it ;  and  predicament  of  deniers  of  the  Scriptures  and 
their  teachings.     The  love  of  God  for  man  is  that  of  Him  as  three  Persons. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

74.  All  Tilings  enveloped  in  insoluble  Mystery — especially  the  Being  and 

Mode  of  Existence  of  God.  .....    128 

75.  The  Fact  of  Mystery  or  Incomprehensibility  of  a  Being  or  Object  no 

Reason  for  disbelieving  or  denying  it.  .  .  .129 

76.  What  the  Scriptures  teach  concerning   God   as  one  Being  and  Three 

Persons.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .130 

77.  No    Antecedent    Probability    or    Presumption    against    this    Scriptural 

Teaching.  ......  132 

78.  Incompetence  of  Man  vvitiiout  a  Revelation  to  know  this,  demonstrated 

by  the  History  of  the  Heathen  World.       .  .  .  •    '33 

79.  Functions  of  Reason  respecting  Religious  and  Moral  Truths  and  Facts.        135 

80.  Application  of  all   this   to   Deniers  of  the   Scriptural   Doctrine   of  the 

Trinity.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .13(3 

81.  No  Rational  Ground   for  rejecting   the   Doctrine   of  the   Trinity   from 

fear  of  contravening  the  Scriptuies.  .  .  .139 

82.  What  the  adoption  of  Trinitarianisni  by  the  Main  Mass  of  the  Church 

from  its  Beginning  argues.  .....   142 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xi 

Section  No.  n       xt 

_     J .  Page  No. 

83.  Predicament  of  Theistic  Deniers  of  the  Scriptural  Revelation  concern- 

ing God,  the  Trinity,  and  the  Atonement.  .  .  .144 

84.  No  Presumption  against  any  Doctrine  of  Christianity,  but  a  decisive 

one,  a  Moral  Certainty  that  it  is  true.  ....   148 

85.  Mankind  could  not  anticipate  what  the   contents   of  a   Revelation  or 

the  manner  of  its  Communication  would  be.      .  .  .  149 

86.  The  Infidel  Notion  of  what  the  Love  of  God  is,   arrayed  against  the 

Scriptural  Teachings,  of  no  weight.  ....   150 

87.  The  only  Evidence  infidels  can  have  of  God's  Love  for  Mankind  as 

Sinners.  .  .  ,  .  ,  .  ici 

88.  Predicament  of  those  who  believe  only  excerpts  or  selected  paits  of  the 

Bible,  and  discard  all  others.       .....   \i-i 

89.  No  Being  Can  really  manifest  the  Love  of  Another,  etc.  .  154 

90.  How  the  Greatness  and  Strength  of  any  Being's  Love   for   Others  is 

Shown.      How  God's  for  Mankind.  ....    155 

gi.   On  what   the   Fact   and   Doctrine   of  the   Love   of  God   for   Mankind 

entirely  rest.  ••..,.  156 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Scriptural  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  of  the  second  Person  of  the  Trinity  ; 
necessary  in  order  to  His  mediatorial  relations  to  God  and  man,  including  His 
whole  mission  on  earth,  and  His  relations  to  His  redeemed  Church  and  the  intel- 
ligent universe — all  involved  in  God's  eternal  Plan  of  the  material,  animated,  and 
rational  creation. 

Section  No.  I'age  No. 

92.  The  Notion  that  the   Divine   Nature   of  Christ  was  incarnated   in   a 

mere  Human  Body  without  a  Soul,  groundless.       -  .   161 

93.  What  Scripture  teaches  respecting  the  two  Natures  and  the   Person- 

ality of  Christ.     .  .  .  .  .  .164 

94.  Design  to  be  accomplished  by  the  Incarnation.  .  .  .   166 

95.  No  Ground  to  think  the  Incarnation  would  have  been  made,  if  Man 

had  not  Sinned.  .  .  .  ...  167 

96.  Necessity  of  the  Incarnation  in  order  to  the  Atonement.  .  .   168 

97.  Angels  lacking  a  Race-Constitution,  and  differences  between  Adam's 

Action  and  theirs.  .....  169 

98.  Mankind  the  consummate  order  of  Rational  Creatures.  .  .  170 

99.  Chief  Parts  and  Ends  of  God's  Plan  of  Creation — A  Brief  Theodicy.  173 
100.  What,  in  Substance,  the  General  Plan  of  the  Universe,  Material  and 

Vital,  manifestly  is.  ....  .  175 

loi.   How  our  Race  is  distinguished  from  the  Angels,  and  thus  the  Key- 
stone Order  of  Intelligent  Beings.  ....   178 

102.  Why  all  since  Adam  begin  Life  in  Great  Peril,  and  are  on  a  gracious, 

not  legal  Probation,  as  he  was.  ....  178 

103.  Was  it  Just,  Benevolent,  and  Honorable  in  God  to  create  our  Race  so 

constituted  and  related  to  Adam?  .  .  .  .180 

104.  The  Entire  Part  of  the  Son  of  God  Radically  Included  in  the  Eternal 

Plan.      .  .  .  .  •  •  .184 

105.  The  Whole  Destiny  of  the  Church  as  related  to  Christ  included  in 

the  Plan.      .  .  •  •  •  •  •  '^^ 


xii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  X. 

God's  foreknowledge,  eternal  purpose,  election,  and  predestination.     Divine 
sovereignty  as  related  to  man's  freed6m. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

106.  God's  Omniscience,  natural,  eternal,  and  wholly  Independent  of  His 

Will.      .......  189 

107.  All  Worlds  and  Creatures  by  and  for  the  Son,  and  the  Scope  of  the 

Redemptive  Plan.       ......    190 

108.  Difficulty  of  bringing  Men  to  repent,  and  Limitations  of  the  Spirit's 

Agency.  ......  191 

109.  What  must  be  true  of  the   Divine   Sovereignty   as    related    to    Man's 

Freedom.  ......   194 

110.  No  other  reasons  for  Election  than  the  foreseen  Effects  of  the  Redem- 

tive  Measure.  ......  195 

111.  In  what  God's  Sovereignty  consists.       ....  197 

112.  Nothing  in  it  Inconsistent  with  the  Moral  System  or  Man's  Freedom.  200 

113.  God's  Knowledge  not  identical  with  His  Election  and  Predestination.  201 

114.  Meaning  of  His  Forelcnowing  those  Pie  Elected  and  Predestinated.  20- 

115.  What  Scripture  teaches  concerning  God's  Eternal  Purpose,  Election. 

and  Predestination.  .....  204 

116.  Examination  of  Rom.  8:27-30  and  Eph.  1:4-14.         .  .  .  203 

117.  The  Purpose  and  Election  in  Rom.  9: 11  mean  entirely  different  things 

from  those  we  are  considering.  .  .  .  .211 

118.  Such  Elections  as  that  of  the  Jacob-Nation  and  Rejections  as  that  of 

ihe  Esau-Nation  common.  .  .  .  .  '215 


PART  III. 

77^1?  Law  a  Unit;  Divided  totvard  Human  Sinners  into  the  two  Demaijds  for 
Retributive  Justice  and  Mercy.  Expiation  and  Propitiation.  The  Atone- 
mtnt  and  its  Purpose. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

The  unity  of  the  law  in  all  moral  beings  in  respect  to  the  ever-obedient. 
Divided  towards  human  sinners  into  two  opposite  demands— one  of  justice  as 
retributive,  the  other  of  mercy;  and  the  relations  of  these  demands  to  each  other. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

119.  The  Law  in  all  Minds  a  Unit  towards  the  ever  obedient,  and  also  the 

Love  it  enjoins.  .  .  .  .  •        "  •   21S 

120.  Both  these  Units  divided  in  all  towards  Human  Sinners.  .  219 

121.  A  kind  of  Schism  in  the  Law  in  all  towards  those  Guilty  of  mitigated 

Sin.  .  .  .  .  .  •  -221 

122.  How   God's    Mercy  differs  from  the  Love  due  to  the  ever-obedient, 

and"  relates  to  Justice  both  as  Ethical  and  as  Retributive.  .  222 

123.  Had  Man  never  sinned,  God  could  not  have  had  either  the  Demand 

for  Retrilnitive  Justice,  nor  the  Dictate  to  Mercy.  .  •  224 

124.  The  Relation  in  God's  Mind  of  this  Dictate  to  this  Demand.  .  226 


229 
2U 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS'.  ^jjj 

Section  No.  p^g^  ^To 

125.  Points  connected  with  the  Subject  of  the  Atonement  respcctin"-  both 

God  and  Man.      .  .  .  .  _  "     _ 

126.  Device  of  the  Incarnation  and  Mediatoisliip  of  our  Lord,  and  Errors 

concerning  them.         •  •  .  .  . 

127.  No  End  of  Importance  attainable  by  these,  if  Man  had  not  sinned. 

128.  Other  Truths  on  the  Side  of  God.  ....  2-- 

129.  What  True  on  the  Side  of  Man.  ....  2^6 

CHAPTER  Xir. 

Expiation  and  Propitiation. 
Section  No.  Page  jjo. 

130.  Meanings  of  these  Terms;  relation  of  the  Two;  Expiation  demanded 

by  Justice,  both  as  Ethical  and  as  Retributive.         .  .  .  237 

131.  Expiatory  Sacrifices  not  originated  by  Men,  but  evidently  by  direction 

of  God  to  Adam,  and  so  to  Mankind.  .  .  .  ;.:q 

132.  From  whom  Objections  to  Expiation  always  come,  and  to  what  Denial 

of  it  always  leads.  .....  241 

133.  Bushnell's  Assaults  on  it  misrepresent  it,  and  are  groundless  and  false.       243 

134.  How  the  Sufferings  of  Christ  for  Mankind  meet  and  stay  the  Demands 

of  Justice  against  them.  ....  246 

135.  Bushnell's  Notion  of  Propitiation  a  prodigious  conceit,  anti-moral,  and 

derogatory  to  God.  .....  248 

136.  On  His  Grounds,  God's  anger  at,  and  need  of  Propitiation  towards, 

Sinners  reasonless.  .....  249 

137.  The  Mode  of  God's  Self-Propitiation  stated  is  self  contradictory  and 

ridiculous.  ......  250 

13S.  This  Mode  not  According  to  .A,nalogies  in  Human  Experience.  .  252 

139.  Correlated  Conceits  about   the   Trinity,   the  Tedium   of  an   Untragic 

World,  the  Propitiation  Eternal,  etc.        ....  253 

140.  Reconciliation  of  God  to  Man — of  Him  first  in  order — of  Man  as  a 

consequence  of  His  to  Man,  ....  254 

CH.\PTER  XIII. 

The  Atonement;  its  exclusive  purpose;  what  not  implied  in  it;  in  what 
alone  it  consisted  ;  how  it  met  the  demands  of  justice  ;  and  love  not  in  its  nature 
essentially  vicarious. 

Section  No.  Pnge  No- 

141.  Atonement  Defined,  and  its  only  direct  End.  .  .  .  258 

142.  Levitical  Atonements  and  that  of  Christ,  all  made  to  God  for  human 

Sinners.                 ...■••  259 

143.  Eifect  of  that  of  Christ  in  God  and  on  His  rectoral  relations.  .  260 

144.  The  so-called  Moral  View  of  it  against  Scripture  and  absurd.            .  262 

145.  Not  implied  in  the  Substitution  of  Christ,  that  He  assumed  the  Ill- 

Desert  of  Sinners.       ....••  263 

146.  Nor  that  He  experienced  any  personal,  natural  Consequences  of  Sin.         264 

147.  Not  the  direct  Design  ol  His  Atonement  to  show  God's  Abhorrence 

of  Sin,  etc.  .  •  •  •  •  265 

14S.   His  sufferings  different  in  Character  and  Design  from  those  of  Mothers, 

Friends,  or  Patriots.  .  .  •  ■  .266 


xiv  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

149.  His  not  equal  in  Quantity  to  the  aggregate  of  those  deserved  by  all 

Mankind,  nor  by  the  Elect.        .....  266 

150.  Why  His  were  equivalent  to  those  deserved  by  all  human  Sinners.  268 

151.  In  vi^hat  the  Atonement  consisted  ;   why  made;  and  why  it  more  than 

met  the  Demands  of  Justice.  ....  269 

152.  Love  not  a  Principle  essentially  vicarious  in  its  Nature.      .  .  270 

153.  That  it  is  not,  shown  by  apostrophizing  Prophets,  Christ,  etc.  .  274 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  designed  relations  of  the  Atonement  to  human  sinners  as  such,  to  those 
brought  to  comply  with  the  conditions  of  salvation  and  forgiveness  during  their 
probation,  and  connected  points. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

154.  The  Atonement  a  Provision  for  all  Mankind  alike,  but  an  actual  one 

for  those  only  who  comply  with  its  Terms.        .                  .                  .  279 

155.  The  Condition  of  its  Application  to  any,  and  how  it  is  made,  .  2S0 

156.  If  not  for  all,  would  not  accord  with  either  Justice  or  Mercy.              .  281 

157.  Nor  with  Christ's  being  the  Representative  of  Mankind.            .  ,  2S2 

158.  What  True  if  it  were  an  actual  Substitution  for  all  Mankind  as  Sinners.  282 

159.  What  True,  if  it  were  such  for  any  Part  of  Mankind,  and  not  for  all.  283 
i6o.   If  either  of  these  Suppositions  were  true,   a  Probation  in  any  sense 

impossible  for  Mankind.  ....  284 

161.  Must  be  simply  a  Provision  for  all  alilce  to  be  made  actual  for  any, 

or  to  be  offered  to  all  or  any.  ....   2S4 

162.  The  Atonement  being  for  all,  all  have  a  Gracious  Probation.  .  286 

163.  All  Sacred  Truth,  Motives,  etc.,  like  the  Atonement,  only  provisional 

for  Mankind  as  Sinners.  .....   287 

164.  Both  the  Son  and  the  Father  had  a   perfect  Right  to  act  the  Parts 

They  did,  and  to  agree  to  do  so.        .                 .                 .  •  288 

165.  Hence,  Both  were  absolutely  Just  in  acting  them.       .                 .  .  290 

166.  The  Objection,  that  the  orthodox  God  must  have  Blood,  exposed.  291 

167.  The  Question  of  the  Atonement  one  of  Morality —the  Morality  of  God.       293 

168.  Questions  for  Objectors  to  the  Atonement  to  consider.         .  .  295 

169.  A  Statement  by  Bushnell  respecting  Love  examined.                   .  .   296 

170.  If  Justice  as  Retributive  is  discarded,  so  must  it  be  as  Ethical ;  and 

the  certain  Result.  .....  297 

171.  Why  Christ's  Sufferings  must  be  inflicted  by  the  Father's  Will,  and 

would  save  Measureless  Suffering.  ....   299 

172.  God  not  Impassible.  .  .  .  300 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Whether  there  was  an  obligation  on  God  to  provide  an  atonement  for  human 
sinners,  such  as  we  have  shown. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

173.  The  Position  of  the  Reformers  on  this  Point  noticed-  .  •  3°3 

174.  No  Obligation  of  Justice  on  God  to  Sinners  to  make  an   Atonement 

for,  or  to  save  tliem ;  nor  to  other  Beings.         .  ,  .  3°4 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xt 

Section  No.  p^^^  j^^ 

175.  God's  Creation  by  the  best  possible  Plan,  and  why  He  spared  the  First 

Pair  when  they  sinned.  •  •  .  .  .   106 

176.  Why  an  Infinite  Obligation  on  Him  to  do  all  morally  possible  to  save 

Human  Sinners.  •  ■  •  .  .  -joq 

177.  An  Obligation  to  rescue  from  all  this  Evil,  and  to  secure  Immeasur- 

able Good,  as  far  as  possible.  .  .  .  .   ^11 

178.  The  Real  Question— Whether  there  is  an  Obligation  to  exercise  Mercy, 

when  consistent  with  Justice.  ....  312 

179.  Such  an  Obligation  detracts  Nothing  from  Mercy  and  Grace,  etc.  .  313 

180.  Depreciates  Nothing,  but  exalts,  sublimes,   and  glorifies   the   whole 

System  of  Christian  Truth.  .  .  .  •  3'5 

181.  No  Moral  Action  Supererogatory.  .  .  ,  .316 

182.  Some  Reasons  for  writing  the  Philosophical  or  Psychological  Parts  of 

this  Work.  ......  316 

183.  Christianity  and  Skepticism  Contrasted.     The  Latter  only  Destructive.       318 

184.  What  Follows,  if  we  have  proved  an  Obligation  on  God  to  make  an 

Atonement.  .  .  .  ,  .  •  3IQ 

185.  The  Bane  of  Theology.  .....  320 


PART  IV. 

Scriptural  Teachings  Respecting  the  Relations  of  Christ  and  His  Atonement  to 
Mankind. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Relatir  n  of  Adam  ami  of  his  sin  and  of  its  personal  effects  to  his  race,  and 
examination  of  Rom.  5:12-19  and  of  8:18-23  in  connection  with  Gen.  2:17  and 
3:16-19. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

1S6.  Natural  Consequences  of  Adam's  Sin  conveyed  to  his   Posterity  by 

propagation.  ,..,..  322 

187.   What,  according  to  Rom.  5:12-19,  was  the  relation  of  Adam's  Sin  to 

his  Posterity.         ......  325 

18S.  Adam  as  created,  and  the  effects  of  his  Sin  on  his  Nature.         .  •  326 

189.  Three  Deaths,  Bodily,  Spiritual,  and  Retributive,  and  other  Evils.  329 

190.  Relation  of  Bodily  Death  to  the  sin,  and  to  the  Spiritual  Death,  of 

the  First  Pair.  ......  33° 

191.  Consideration  of  Rom.  8: 18-23,  as  Related  to  Gen.  3:  i6   19.  •  33' 

192.  What  this  whole  passage  shows.  ....  })l}, 

193.  Inherited   Effects  of  Adam's  Sin;    Atonement   :uul    the    Holy    Spirit 

necessary  to  save  even  Infants.              ....  ol^ 

194.  Direct  examination  of  Rom.  5:12-19.     Verse  12  Considered.  .  338 

195.  Adam,  the  Type,  and  Christ  the  Antitype.            .                 .                .  342 

196.  The  Wondrous  literary  skill,  as  well  as  profound   Moral  Insight  shown 

in  the  construction  of  this  whole  passage.  .  .  •  34^ 

197.  Importance  of  the  Teachings  of  this  Wonderful  Passage,  Rom.  5:12- 19.       350 


xvi  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Atonements  of  the  animal  sacrifices  of  tlie  Levitical  Law;  the  origin  and  gen- 
eral use  of  such  sacrifices  among  the  nations;  and  the  relation  of  those  of  the 
Levitical  Law  to  the  Atonement  and  all  the  relations  of  Christ  to  mankind,  to 
God,  and  to  the  universal  moral  society. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

198.  Nothing  in  all  God's  Doings  towards  Mankind  arbitrary  or  capricious.       352 

199.  When  the  Redemptive  Plan  was  devised,  and  what  it  included.        .  353 
2CXD.  Meaning  and  Use  of  the  word  Atonement — Noun  and  Verb.                      .  355 

201.  Three  Cases  of  the  Use  of  the  Word  Atonement  when  it  does  not 

mean  Animal  Sacrifices.      .  .  .  .  .  356 

202.  Scriptural  Statement  of  what  the  Atonement  of  an  Animal  Sacrifice 

consisted  in.  .  .  .  .  .  .   358 

203.  Those  Sacrifices  and  the  Theocratic  Government  of  God  over  Israel 

for  them  only  in  this  World.  ....  359 

204.  The  Sin  Offering.             .                 .                 .                 .                 .  .361 

205.  The  Guilt-  or  Trespass-Offering.  .                 .                 .                 .  364 

206.  The  Burnt-Offering.     Not  originated  by  the   Levitical   Law,  but   by 

Adam,  taught  by  God.  .....  366 

207.  That  Sacrifice  was  originated  by  Adam,  undirected  by  God,  ground- 

less and  unreasonable.  .....  369 

208.  A  Clue  to  when  God  taught  Adam  to  offer  Animals  in   Sacrifice— the 

Kinds  and  How.  ......  370 

209.  This  Adamic  Sacrifice  was  not  merely  Eucharistic,  but  Expiatory.  373 

210.  The  Burnt- Offerings  of  Noah,  Abraham,  etc.,  noticed.  .  ,  374 

211.  The  Peace-Offerings — Also  Expiatory.  .  .  .  376 

212.  Conclusion  that  all  the  animal  sacrifices  were  Expiatory,  and  so  Pro- 

pitiatory.     .  .'  .  .  .  .  .377 

213.  The  Priestly  Office  of  the  Levitical  Law.  .  .  .  379 

214.  Relation  of  Go4's  Theocratic   Government  over  Israel,   and  of  the 

Levitical  Priests,  Atonements,  and  Forgivenesses  to  His  Moral  Gov- 
ernment over  all  Men  and  Moral  Beings,  and  to  Christ,  His  Atone- 
ment, and  His  Forgiveness  on  its  Ground.  .  .  .   3S0 

215.  Why  Future  Rewards  and  Punishment  were  not  included  among  the 

sanctions  of  the  Theocratic  Law.       ....  382 

216.  Conclusion  of  this  Chapter^-No  Theory  true  which  denies  that  the 

Levitical  Sacrifices  were  Expiatory.  ....  383 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Teachings  of  the  Epistle  to  the  liebrews  concerning  the  priesthood  of  Christ 
and  the  purpose  of  His  offering  Himself  to  God  as  a  sacrifice. 

Section  No  P.ige  No. 

217.  The  first  two  Chapters  the  Foundation  of  all  that  follow;   the  Three 

Offices  of  Christ ;  Plis  High  Priesthood.  .  .  .  3S5 

218.  The  Definite  Purpose  of  the  High  Priest.  .  .  .  387 

219.  Christ  a  High   Priest  after  the   order  of  Melchizedek,   and   what   it 

proves.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  3^^ 

220.  Christ  the  Antitype  of  the  Levitical  High  Priest.     Where  and  in  What 

Covenant  He  ministers.       .....  3^9 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xvii 

Section  No.  Paje  jj-^_ 

221.  The  Great  Import  of  the  reference  to  the  Two  Covenants,        .  .  301 

222.  Contrasted  exhibitioa  of  the  Means,  Way,  and  Effect  of  the  Fulfill- 

ment of  the  two.  •  .  .  .  .  303 

223.  Additional   Contrasts.      A  nut  infrangible  by   post-mortem   Froba 

tionists.        •.....,  395 

224.  Why  Christ  voluntarily  came  to  do  the  Will  of  God.  .  ,  306 

225.  What  this  Masterly  Epistle,  thus  reviewed,  demonstrates.         .  ,  39S 

226.  Supplement  to  the  Foregoing  Exposition.  ,  .  .  309 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Examination  of  Is.  52:13-15;  53:1-12. 
Section  No.  Page  No. 

227.  MarveloiTS  Character  of  the  Bible  and  of  this  Prophecy.                     .  405 

228.  Meaning  of  the  Hebrew  Verb  Nasa  of  this  Verse — and  of  Mat.  8:17.  407 

229.  Meaning  of  the  Hebrew  Verb  Sabhal.  ....  410 

230.  Matthew's  Greek  of  Chap.  8:17  an  Exact  Translation  of  Is.  53:4.     .  411 

231.  How  only  Christ  took  and  bore  the  sicknesses  and  sorrows  of  Men.  .411 

232.  Interpretation  of  the  second  part  of  Is.  53:4.       .  413 

233.  Relation  of  V.  4  to  Vs.  5-12.         .                .                .  415 

234.  Our  Substitute  in  all  He  suffered — Meaning  of  Chastisement.            .  416 

235.  His  Substitution  further  declared — Iniquities  of  All  thrown  on  Him.  41? 

236.  His  perfect  patience  and  meekness  in  His  sufferings.           .                .  417 

237.  How  He  was  cut  off  by  Men,  yet  would  have  a  vast  posterity.  .  418 

238.  His  Honorable  Burial,  despite  the  design  of  His  enemies,  with  the 

reason.  ......  419 

239.  Jehovah  subjected  Him  to  His  sufferings — His  Soul  an  offering  for 

Sin,  and  the  Results.  .  .  .  •  4'9 

240.  Jehovah  speaks  and  declares  the  Results.  .  .  .421 

241.  Jehovah  declares  His  Rewards.  ....  423 

242.  Christ  not  a  Martyr,  but  a  voluntary  Substitute  for  Sinners  in  all  He 

suffered,  etc..        ......  425 

243.  Passage  from  Magee  respecting  this  Chapter  and  its  Importance.  .  427 

244.  Passages  in  the  New  Testament,  in  which  Nasa  and  Sabhal  are  trans- 

lated into  corresponding  Greek  Verbs.  .  .  .  428 

245.  Proper  translation  of  John  1:29,  excludes  away  from  takes.       .  .  429 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Examination  of  the  Greek  prepositions  avri  and  v'Kkp  in  passages  concern- 
inn-  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  for  the  salvation  of  human  sinners;  and  the 
teaching  of  Scripture  that  these  were  necessary  to  their  salvation. 

Section  No.  ^"2'=  ^o- 

246.  The  Preposition  anti.  .  .  .  •  433 

247.  The  Preposition  /neper.  .  .  .  •  •  434 

248.  Huper  always  has  a  duplicate  meaning  when  used  in  stating  that  one 

dies  to  save  others  from  dying.           .                .                .                •  437 

249.  Necessity  for  the  substitutional  Sufferings  and  Death  of  Christ.  •  439 

250.  Passages  teaching  a  necessity  for  these  for  the  Fort^iveness  of  Sins.  442 

251.  No  Martyr  ever  Divinely  treated  as  He  was.                .                •  -  •  443 


xviii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

252.  Other  Passages  implying  necessity  for  the  Substitution  of  Christ,     .  445 

253.  'JlaaKo/j-at  and  Words  from  it  in  the  New  Testament  from  the  Sep- 

tuagint  Version  of  the  Levitical  Law,       ....  447 

254.  Passages — That  we  liave  redemption  and  are  bought  by,  througli.  or 

with  tire  blood  of  Christ  as  our  Ransom- Price.         .  .  .  449 

255.  Passages  declaring  that  He  gave  His  Life  for  Us.  .  .  453 

256.  Christ,  as  High  Priest,  offered  Himself  to  God,  a  Sacrifice  for  the  Sins 

of  Mankind,  ......  454 

257.  Passages  Concerning  the  Sufferings  and  Death  of  Christ.  .  455 

258.  Passages  which  Speak  of  Christ's  Dying  and  Death  for  Mankind.  .  457 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Positions  certified  by  the  whole  foregoing  review  of  the  Scriptural  teachings 
concerning  atonements,  especially  that  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  for  the  sins  of 
mankind. 

Section  No.  Pa^e  No. 

259.  Position  First,  that  the  Atonement  of  Christ  was  made  exclusively  to 

God.      .......  459 

260.  Position  Second,  that,  in  itself,  it  was  not  to  produce  any  effect  in 

Human  Sinners.  .  .  .  .  .  .  460 

261.  When  God,  under  the  constraints  just  stated,  purposed  this  Measure-         461 

262.  Third  Position,  that  the  two  preceding  are  Certainties  respecting  it 

against  all  Theories.             .....  463 

263.  Scriptural  Teachings  respecting  the  extent  of  the  Atonement.  .  465 

264.  A  Citation  from  Trench's  Sermons  refuted.           .                 .                 .  468 

265.  The  True    Solution  of  the  Question  concerning  the  Sufferings  and 

Death  of  Christ.  .  .  .  .  .  •  471 

CHAPTER  XXn. 

Examination  of  what  is  called  the  Governmental  Theory  of  the  Atonement. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

266.  Statement  of  this  View.  .  .  .  »  .  475 

267.  Statement  of  what  we  hold  to  be  the  True  View.        .  ,  .  477 

268.  What  we  have  in  this  Statement.  ....  478 

269.  What  must  be  true  of  Punishment.  ....  480 

270.  What  the  Scriptures  teach  respecting  God's  Reason  for  and  End  in 
Punishment.  ......  482 

271.  Easy  to  see,  then,  what  an  Atonement  must  be.  .  •  .  484 

CHAPTER  XXHI. 
Scriptural  Doctrine  01  Forgiveness  and  Justification. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

272.  Why  God  cannot  forgive  any  Sinner  independently  of  the  Atonement.       488 

273.  Forgiveness  of  Sins  not  a  personal  matter  to  God.      .  .  .  486 

274.  What  Forgiveness  is,  as  taught  in  Scripture.         .  .  .  493 

275.  Forgiveness  does  nothing  in  the  Forgiven,  but  is  wholly  an  act  for 

him,  relieving  him  from  Penalty.  ....  494 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xix 

^^'^''^"  N°-  Section  No. 

276.  Meaning  of  the  Greek  Verb,   lendeicd  to  justify,   and  of  its  kindred 

nouns  and  other  words.                         •                 •'                 .                 .  401; 

277.  Why  Forgiveness  can  only  be  on  the  Ground  of  the  Atonement.               .  497 
27S.  What  Paul  Used  the  Greek  Verb,  Rendered  to  Justify,  and  its  Kindred 

nouns  and  other  words  to  Express.  .  .  .  408 
279.   The  Adjective   dimtoc  specially  noticed,  and    the  nouns   and  adverb 

kindred.        .                 .                 .                 .                 .                 .                 .  ^^g 

2S0.   Meanings  of  these  Greek  words.             ....  500 

281.  Meaning  of  the  Expression,  Righteousness  of  God.                    .                ,  501 

282.  The  Relation  of  this  Righteousness  or  Obedience  of  Christ  to  Men.  503 

283.  The  Merit  of  Christ  for  His  Obedience  without  limit  and  for  all  who 

will  believe.                   ••....  1504 

284.  All  Christ's  Rewards  due  Him  by  Moral  Right  and  Justice;   all  done 

for  Men  Grace.                      .                 .                 .                .                .  co6 

285.  Justification  in  the  Light  of  the  Preceding.                   .                 .                 .  507 

286.  Sense  in  which  what  we  have  shown  involves  the  Doctrine  of  Impu- 

tation. .  .  .  .  ,  .508 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

The  dwarlTng,  derogatory  effects  of  the  so-called  Moral  View  of  the  Atone- 
ment. 

Section  No.  Page  No. 

287.  No  essentially  New  Theology  can  ever  supplant  the  Evangelical.  .  51 1 

288.  The  Conception  of  God's  Love,  in  the  so-called  Moral  View,   Essen- 

tially Untrue.        .  .  .  .  .  •  S'3 

289.  Farther  showing   that   th's  View   dwarfs  and   depreciates  it  towards 

Mankind.      .  .  .  .  .  .  .515 

290.  This  Effect  on  the  Conception  of  God's  Love  for  Man  more  manifest 

from  its  like  effects  on  that  of  other  Truths.  .  .  517 

291.  The  Effects  of  this  View  on  the  essential  Truths  and  facts  embraced 

in  the  Redemptive  Measure.       .  .  .  .  -519 

202.   How  this   View  affects   Motives  against   Sin,    and   to    Obedience— to 

Repentance  and  Faith.        .....  522 

293.  This  View  limits  the  objects  of  Prayer  and  Thanksgiving.         .  .  524 

294.  The  Preceding  Showings  against  this  View  equally  valid  against  all 

Views  which  deny  Justice  and  the  Atonement.  .  .  523 

295.  The  Questiou  of  the  Perpetuity  of  Future  Punishment.  .  .  527 


PART  I. 

THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 


CHAPTER  L 

The  Law  of  God  as  given  iti  consciousness  by  Rfoial  Reason.  A 
clear  understanding  of  it  necessary  to  that  of  the  Atonement;  and  its 
characteristics. 

§  I.    ORIGIN  OF  THE  DIVINE  LAW. 

The  law  of  God  declared  in  the  Bible  is  in  and  from  universal 
moral  reason.  It  is  in  every  rational  nature,  as  instinct  is  in  every 
animal  nature;  and  it  issues  from  it  as,  in  classic  fable,  Minerva,  the 
goddess  of  wisdom,  sprung  armed,  chaste,  and  beautiful  from  the 
cloven  head  of  Jupiter.  It  is  thus  in  and  from  the  Mind  of  God 
from  all  eternity;  and  it  is  thus  in  and  from  all  created  rational 
minds  ever  onward  from  their  first  waking  to  consciousness.  In 
other  words,  it  is  necessarily,  not  merely  thought,  but  authoritatively 
affirmed  or  dictated  by  the  rational  nature  of  all  moral  beings  in  all 
worlds;  and  it  is  called  law,  because  it  is  thus  in  and  springs  from 
them,  not  as  an  idea,  like  that  of  space  or  time,  but  as  an  authori- 
tative rule  for  their  social  action,  which  by  it  is  ethical  or  moral. 
It  is  thus  the  ground  and  source  in  them  of  all  sense  of  dut}',  of  justice 
and  injustice,  of  right  and  wrong,  of  holiness  and  unholiness,  of  moral 
beauty  and  deformity,  of  moral  good  and  evil,  of  merit  and  demerit, 
of  responsibility  and  accountability,  of  rewards  and  punishments, 
of  all  proper  human  government,  and  of  all  ethics  and  religion;  and 
it  is  necessarily  recognized  as  '"'holy,  just,  and  good".  It  is  thus 
that,  as  the  great  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  declares,  mankind  are  "a 
law  unto  themselves;  in  that  they  show  the  work  of  the  law  written 
in  their  hearts,  their  conscience  bearing  witness  therewith,  and  their 
thouehts  one  with  another  accusing  or  else  excusing  them."     It  is 


2  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

of  course  as  permanent  and  immutable  as  the  nature  of  God  and 
of  all  other  moral  beings.  As  it  is  not  originated  by  will,  Divine  or 
created,  it  is  irrepealable  and  unchangable  by  will;  and  all  moral 
beings,  simply  by  being  such,  are  necessarily  in  an  everlasting  moral 
society  and  system,  as  all  the  material  worlds,  from  greatest  to  least, 
are  in  a  physical  system.  Such  is  the  law  of  God,  obedience  to 
which  alone  constitutes  all  right  character  and  secures  all  moral 
good  and  blessedness  in  any  moral  being  in  any  world. 

§  2.    RELATION  OF  KNOWLEDGE  OF  IT  TO  THAT  OF  THE  ATONEAIENT. 

The  worst  fact  in  the  universe,  the  source  of  all  others  that  are 
evil,  is,  that  a  vast  proportion  of  created  moral  beings  have  violated 
this  law  by  sin,  and  have  thus  incurred  the  natural,  and  made  them- 
selves liable  to  the  penal,  consequences  of  their  apostacy.  Among 
these  are  all  responsible  mankind;  and  it  is  to  them  that  the  atone- 
ment, if  there  is  one,  relates  as  a  measure  of  God  to  retrieve  them 
from  the  necessity  of  suffering  the  penal  part  of  these  consequences, 
and  to  provide  for  arresting  those  which  are  merely  natural.  In 
order  to  understand  the  reasons  for,  and  the  nature  of,  that  measure, 
it  is  necessary  to  have  a  clear  understanding  of  the  law,  and  of  the 
penal  part  of  the  consequences  of  its  violation  as  distinguished  from 
those  which  are  merely  natural.  Thus  only  can  any  scientific  knowl- 
edge of  this  transcendent  subject  be  attained,  and  all  the  objections 
and  inventions  of  rejecters  of  it  be  exposed  and  expelled  from  intel- 
ligent acceptance  by  any.  The  question  of  the  atonement  is  intrins- 
ically one  of  moral  science,  of  moral  philosophy,  no  less  than  of 
Scripture;  for  it  is  rooted  in  the  question  concerning  moral  nature 
itself  and  the  law  in  and  from  it;  and  it  directly  relates  to  the  law 
and  its  application  to  men  as  sinners,  and  to  God  as  administrator 
of  that  law  to  them  and  all  intelligent  creatures,  and  so  to  all  such 
creatures  forevermore.  Whether  there  is  a  universal  and  eternal 
moral  system  constituted  by  universal  moral  nature,  having  the  law 
in  and  from  it,  as  indicated,  and,  if  one,  what  it  necessarily  involves 
respecting  human  sinners  as  related  to  God  and  all  other  moral 
beings  in  that  system,  and  as  He  and  they  are  related  to  them,  are 
the  questions  upon  the  right  answers  to  which  those  concerning  the 
atonement,  the  necessity  for  and  the  design  and  nature  of  it,  neces- 
sarily depend.  As  the  law  in  all  moral  natures  is  essentially  the 
same,  all  the  questions  concerning  it  and  a  universal  moral  system 
and  society,  which,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  must  be  eternal,  are 
identical;  so  that  the  fundamental  question  between  the  maintainers 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  LAW,  3 

and  the  rejecters  of  an  atonement  is  simply — "what  is  the  truth 
concerning  the  law?"  Our  first  business,  then,  is  to  ascertain  the 
true  answer  to  this  question  as  given  by  its  only  competent  teachers, 
the  consciousness  of  man  and  the  inspired  Revelation  of  God  to 
man.  Thus  only  can  we  find  and  show  which  of  the  two  sides,  that 
of  belief  in,  or  that  of  denial  of,  an  atonement,  stands  on  solid  moral 
ground,  and  which  on  sandy  non-moral  assumptions  and  specu- 
lations. As  this  method  of  procedure  is  unprecedented,  and  as  all 
the  questions  involved  in  it  ars  of  such  profound  importance,  the 
prosecution  of  it  must  be  thorough,  and  cannot  be  brief.  It  will 
require  several  chapters,  which  will  constitute  the  first  part  of  this 
work.  To  this  task  we  now  proceed,  designing  to  accomplish  it 
with  as  much  brevity  as  possible,  consistent  with  making  it  through- 
out clear  and  as  level  to  all  understanding  as  such  a  disquisition 
can  be  made.  Most  of  it  we  are  sure  will  be  easily  understood  by 
all  intelligent  readers,  and  should  be  well  pondered  by  all.  Accord- 
ing to  our  method,  we  must  begin  by  showing  the  essential  charac- 
teristics of  the  law  attested  by  consciousness. 

§  3.    FIRST  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  THE  LAW,  THUS  ATTESTED. 

1.  As  already  stated,  it  springs  into  consciousness,  not  as  an  idea 
of  any  kind,  but  as  an  authoritative  rule  of  action.  It  comes  as  an 
imperative  or  mandate  to  each  one's  self  to  will,  and  act  for,  the  real 
good  of  its  objects,  always  involving  and  imposing  a  conscious 
obligation  to  obedience;  and  it  thus  constitutes  all  obedience  to  it 
moral  action,  and  all  disobedience  to  it,  not  merely  non-moral,  but 
immoral  action.  Because  it  comes  with  this  imperative  or  man- 
datory character,  and  imposes  this  obligation  to  obedience  on  c  ^h 
one's  self,  whether  we  say,  the  imperative  or  the  mandate  of  the  law 
is  wholly  immaterial,  as  both  these  terms  express  precisely  the 
same  thing;  but,  for  certain  reasons,  we  shall  probably  use  the 
former  more  than  the  latter  of  them  to  indicate  the  binding  author- 
ity with  which  the  law  is  given  in  each  one's  consciousness. 

§  4.    SECOND   CHARACTERISTIC,  THE   MATTER  OF  THE  LAW. 

2.  The  action  enjoined  by  the  law  is  its  matter.  It  consists  in 
pure  moral  love  or  good  will,  which  always  carries  with  it  naturally 
correlated  emotions  and  harmonious  intellectual  action.  Towards 
^\\  purely  good  beings,  it  is  without  modification  and  perfect  in  meas- 
ure according  to  their  several  natures  and  general  or  special  rela- 
tions.    Towards  God,  it  is  consummately  full  and  perfect,  far  sur- 


4  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

passing  its  utmost  measures  to  any  creatures;  towards  angels,  it  is 
perfect  according  to  knowledge  of  them  and  their  relations;  and 
towards  "the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect,"  is  unmodifiedly  per- 
fect according  to  the  same  knowledge  of  them.  But,  towards  all 
other  known  moral  beings,  self  included,  if  human,  it  is  not  full,  but 
modified  in  quality  to  all  who  are  objects  of  it  at  all,  according  to 
knowledge  or  belief  respecting  their  several  moral  characters  and 
relations  to  God  and  their  fellow  beings.  In  a  qualified  sense,  it  is 
towards  some  species  of  irrational  animals.  By  the  constitution  of 
a  moral  nature,  the  emotions  correlated  to  pure  good-will  are  neces- 
sarily evoked  from  the  sensibility,  and  maintained  and  cherished  in 
it  by  that  good-will,  and,  though  without  moral  quality  in  them- 
selves, as  all  mere  emotions  are,  are,  by  this  will-action,  incorpor- 
ated into  the  consistence  of  true  moral  love  to  the  morally  lovable 
of  all  grades.  Towards  the  good,  even  not  free  from  faults,  this  love 
includes  cherished  complacency,  gratitude  when  due,  rewarding 
favor  and  fit  honor,  and  to  some  reverence.  Towards  the  evil  of  our 
race,  yet  hopefully  redemptible,  it  includes  only  shadows  of  these  in 
some  civil,  social,  or  domestic  sense,  connected  with  pity,  sorrow,  and 
an  impulse  to  mercy,  and  often  with  indignation,  anger,  and  other 
emotions  of  aversion  against  them  for  their  evil  deeds,  crimes,  or 
persistent  wickedness.  Towards  self,  it  includes  moral  self-love,  but 
excludes  selfishness,  or  preference  of  self-gratification  in  any  mode  to 
the  perceivable  good  of  any  of  its  objects.  Both  it  and  selfishness, 
its  opposite,  are  voluntai-y,  whatever  emotions  are  correlated  to  them. 

§  5.   THIRD  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  THE  LAW,  WHICH  IS  ITS  END. 

3.  The  end  of  the  law  is  the  complete  good  of  God  and  all  holy 
beings,  and  the  greatest  practicable  good  of  mankind  as  they  stand 
related  to  Him  and  to  each  other  by  their  nature,  sinful  character, 
and  deserts.  The  opposed  end  is  self-gratification  in  any  conflicting 
form  or  degree.  No  other  opposed  end  is  possible,  and  moral 
beings  never  act  morally,  except  in  choosing  one  or  the  other 
of  these  ends,  and  in  executive  action  to  secure  or  attain  them. 
When  they  consciously  sin,  they  know  the  latter  to  be  their  end 
just  as  they  do  the  former  when  they  obey.  These  two  funda- 
mental ends  draw  after  and  divide  between  them  the  universe  of 
moral  beings,  and  are  in  irreconcilable,  eternal  conflict.  The  moral 
love  which  is  the  matter  of  the  law  is  choosing  the  former;  the  self- 
fishness  prohibited  by  it  is  choosing  the  latter ;  and  these  two  rad- 
ical moral  choices,  like  their  ends,  are  everlastingly  antagonistic. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  LAW. 
§  6.    FOURTH    CHARACTERISTIC   OF   THE   LAW. 

4.  The  law  is  concrete  and  social.  By  concrete  is  meant  that  it 
is  never  given  as  an  abstraction,  whether  called  the  idea  of  right,  or 
by  any  other  name,  but  always  as  an  imperative  rule  of  action  in  its 
subject  to  render  its  matter  of  moral  love  to  its  objects,  present  or 
thought  of,  unmodified  or  modified  according  to  the  known  or  sup- 
posed good  or  bad  character  and  deserts  of  each.  By  social  is 
meant,  in  addition,  that  its  matter  of  moral  love  is  enjoined  by  its 
imperative  as  owed  by  and  dtie  from  its  subject  to  its  objects,  as  that 
to  which  they  have  a  right  by  nature,  unless  they  have  forfeited  it 
by  sin,  and,  if  righteous,  also  by  character.  It  is  thus  a  concrete 
and  social  bond,  of  which  one  end  is,  so  to  say,  livingly  inwrought 
by  creative  art  into  the  immortal  nature  of  every  created  moral 
being,  assimilating  it  to  God's,  and  the  other  end  is  projected  by  the 
imperative  in  that  nature  to  every  like  one,  present  or  thought  of, 
and  fastened  to  it  as  having  the  right  or  rights  mentioned  to  the  love 
it  enjoins,  if  not  forfeited;  and,  if  forfeited,  is  even  then  fastened  to 
it  as  an  object  of  good-will,  however  modified,  as  far  and  as  long  a.i 
it  is  capable  of  good,  or  not  utterly  lost — that  is,  while  its  gracious 
probation  lasts.  The  whole  rational  universe  is  thus  interbound 
into  one  society,  with  God  as  its  Center  and  Head,  as  all  the  unnum- 
bered worlds  and  parts  of  the  material  universe  are  interbound  by 
the  physical  force  of  attraction  with  its  law,  as  if  it  were  concrete 
and  social,  in  their  relations  to  each  other  and  their  vast  center. 
As  the  marriage  law  binds  the  pair  united  by  it  to  render  constant, 
pure,  faithful  love  to  each  other,  as  that  to  which  each  has  a  sacred 
right  in  their  relation,  thus  intertying  them  to  perfect  reciprocity  of 
natural  and  moral  debts  and  dues,  so  this  law  of  laws  in  all  moral 
beings,  by  its  concrete  and  social  character,  spiritually  intermarries 
them  all,  as  it  were,  to  each  other  and  to  God,  and  Him  to  them. 
Its  bond  is  essentially  the  same  between  each  one  and  himself  t^/yVr/- 
izedio  himself,  tying  him  to  render  its  matter  of  moral  love  to  him- 
self, as  if  owed  by  and  due  to  himself,  as  if  another.  How  unspeak- 
ably grand  and  beautiful  is  this  social,  moral,  immortal  constitution 
of  the  natures  of  the  ever-augmenting,  intelligent  universe  1  How 
it  surpasses  that  of  the  whole  material  creation. 

I  7.    FIFTH    CHARACTERISTIC    OF    THE    LAW. 

5  The  obligation  to  obey  the  law  is  imposed  by  its  imperative, 
which  never  comes  as  a  mere  "It  is  right,"  or  "It  is  not  right,"  "It 
ou'^ht "  or  "It  ought  not  to  be  done,"  which  is  the  verdict  ol  con- 


6  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

science  concerning  action  done  or  contemplated  according  to  or 
against  it,  but  always  as  a  "You  must,"  or  "You  must  not" — "Do," 
or  "Do  not" — "You  shall,"  or  "You  shall  not."  The  ground  of 
the  obligation  in  each  is  his  moral  nature,  having  moral  reason  to  im- 
pose it  by  its  imperative,  and  related  sensibility  to  feel  it  as  a  bond 
upon  its  ivill  to  comply  with  it;  and  the  condition  of  the  imposing 
imperative  is  always  the  presence  in  fact  or  in  thought  of  one  or  more 
of  like  nature,  or  of  self  object  ized;  such  presence  always  occasioning 
an  intuition  that  he  or  each  of  them  has  a  natural  right,  unless  for- 
feited by  sin,  and,  if  obedient,  a  moral  one  also,  to  the  love  enjoined 
by  it.  Because  they  have  the  natural  right  to  it,  unless  forfeited, 
the  obligation  is  purely  one  of  ethical  justice.  The  additional  obli- 
gation imposed  by  the  imperative  to  render  to  every  one  thus 
present  who  manifests  the  character  of  obedience,  the  love  ot  cher- 
ished complacency  added  to  that  due  him  by  right  of  nature  is  also 
one  of  ethical  justice,  because  by  this  manifestation  he  acquires  a 
moral  right,  additional  to  the  natural,  to  receive  it  from  all  cogni- 
eant  of  his  character.  There  is  another  obligation,  so  imposed,  to 
render  the  love  of  gratitude  to  a  benefactor,  because,  by  being  such, 
he  acquires  a  moral  right,  additional  to  both  the  preceding,  to  this 
kind  of  love;  and  this  also  is  one  of  ethical  justice.  There  are  many 
other  specific  obligations  of  ethical  justice,  including  that  to  veracity 
to  and  concerning  others,  to  which  all  have  a  natural  right,  unless 
forfeited  by  sin,  and  may  also  have  a  moral  one — that  to  just  and 
honorable  dealings  in  business — that  to  obey  and  uphold  rightful 
human  government  and  authority — that  on  all  administrators  of  law 
and  government  of  every  kind  to  be  righteous,  honest,  and  humane 
— and  that  to  be  true  to  all  trusts.  Whenever  the  object  of  an 
imperative  has  a  right  of  nature,  character,  conduct,  contract,  or 
relations  of  any  sort  to  the  moral  love  or-  action  it  enjoins,  the 
obligation  it  imposes  is,  by  that  right,  one  of  ethical  justice.  But, 
in  principle,  the  radical  obligation  first  indicated  is  the  founda- 
tion of,  and  includes,  all  the  others  of  this  justice  specified  and 
existing. 

5  8.    SIXTH    CHARACTERISTIC    OF   THE    LAW. 

C.  Besides  all  this  kind  of  obligations,  there  is  another  species 
imposed  by  the  law's  imperative,  which  is  to  exercise  benevolefice  to 
fellowmen,  even  when  by  criminality  they  have  forfeited  all  right  to 
it,  and  to  some  merely  sentient  creatures  simply  for  the  sake  of  their 
good;  and  the  obligation,  therefore,  is  not  one  of  ethical  justice  to 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  LAW.  7 

them.  As  those  intended  have  forfeited  their  natural  right,  and  their 
moral,  too,  if  they  had  any,  the  benevolence  is  not  due  to  them,  and 
on  no  ground  of  justice  can  they  accuse  any  one  of  injustice,  who 
does  not  exercise  it  to  them.  As  this  obligation  respects  such  men, 
it  is  subordinate  to  and  restricted  by  those  of  ethical  justice  to 
others,  being  limited  by  their  rights,  interests,  and  concerns,  and  by 
the  demands  of  retributive,  punitive  justice  against  them.  As  it 
respects  merely  sentient  creatures,  it  is  restricted  by  their  relations 
and  subserviency  to  the  surmounting  good  of  human  natures.  Within 
these  limits,  benevolence  both  to  them  and  to  the  men  indicated  is 
willing  their  good  simply  for  what  it  is  to  them  as  far  as  they  are 
concerned;  and  the  basis  of  the  obligation  to  it  is  the  fellow-feeling 
or  natural  sympathy  of  moral  beings  with  their  kind,  and  with  lower 
natures  as  far  as  they  are  seen  to  have  homogeneous  qualities. 

§   9.    SEVENTH    CHARACTERISTIC    OF    THE    LAW. 

7.  While  it  is  true  that  sin  forfeits  all  rights,  natural  and  moral, 
to  the  love  of  God,  so  that  there  is  no  obligation  of  justice  on  Him 
to  any  sinner  to  render  love  to  him,  and  all  the  love  He  does  exer- 
cise to  any  must  be  pure  mercy  and  grace  alone,  the  case  is  different 
as  it  respects  mankind  in  this  world.  They  are  all  sinners,  but  on  a 
gracious  probation  during  life  under  a  gracious  dispensation,  that 
they  may  return  to  obedience  and  be  saved,  if  they  will.  During  it, 
the  administration  of  law  and  government  is,  to  a  great  degree, 
modified,  and  their  condition  and  relations  to  each  other,  to  (lod, 
and  to  all  the  holy  society  under  Him  are  correspondingly  anom- 
alous. Had  they  all  been  perfectly  obedient,  there  could  have  been 
no  such  probation  and  no  obligation  to  mercy  to  them  on  God, 
angels,  or  themselves  mutually.  Their  condition  and  relations 
would  have  been  like  those  of  the  holy  society  in  heaven.  But,  as 
they  are,  they  are  not  utterly  subverted  and  lost,  as  the  apostate 
angels  are,  and  are  still  capable  of  partial  conformity  to  God's 
moral  system  in  this  world.  There  is  an  obligation  of  justice  on, 
and,  in  various  degrees,  commonly  recognized  among  them  in  their 
ordinary  relations,  especially  where  they  have  received  the  teach- 
ings of  God's  inspired  revelation,  to  render  moral  love  to  each  other 
according  to  the  modified  rights  they  have  of  nature  and  of  char- 
acter and  conduct,  as  mutually  owed  and  due.  This  is  a  direct 
obligation  on  each  and  all  to  each,  who  has  not  wholly  forfeited  his 
rights  by  criminality.  But,  there  is  an  obligation  of  justice  on  all, 
even  in  relation  to  those  who  have  thus  forfeited  them,  to  love  them 


S  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

with  merciful  benevolence  like  God's  to  themselves — that  is,  to  love 
their  nature  and  its  true  good,  despite  their  evil  character  and  deeds, 
and  their  consequent  relations  to  God  and  His  universal,  everlasting, 
holy  society.  This  is  not  an  obligation  to  them,  because  they  have 
forfeited  their  rights  to  any  love,  but  it  is  one  to  God  respecting 
them,  who  imposes  it  by  commanding  this  love,  which  He  has  an 
absolute  natural  and  moral  right  to  do,  and  which,  therefore,  all  are 
naturally  and  morally  bound  to  obey.  Besides  this,  there  is  the 
obligation,  not  of  justice,  to  will  their  good,  as  shown  under  No.  6. 

§  ID.    EIGHTH    CHARACTERISTIC    OF    THE    LAW. 

8.  It  is  manifest  from  what  we  have  said  under  these  numbers, 
that  justice  is  an  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law,  and  coftstitutes  it  the 
all-binding  intertie  of  moral  beings.  If  men  had  never  sinned,  they 
would  have  perfectly  obeyed  the  law  by  fulfilling  all  its  obligations 
of  justice.  But,  because  this  quality  of  it  is  of  such  radical  import- 
ance in  ethical  science,  and  to  a  correct  understanding  of  the  atone- 
ment, and  because  it  is  so  much  overlooked,  misunderstood,  and 
even  denied  in  these  times,  it  is  esi:)ecially  necessary  in  such  a  work 
as  this  to  devote  a  somewhat  extended  consideration  to  it.  Hence, 
although  in  place  here,  we  pass  it  till  after  we  have  given  attention 
to  the  only  other  characteristic  of  the  law  which  we  will  now  notice, 
when  we  Avill  make  it  the  subject  of  a  chapter. 

§  II.    NINTH    CHARACTERISTIC    OF    THE    LAW. 

9.  That  characteristic  is,  that  this  law  is  given  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  all  moral  agents  as  the  law  of  God,  and  0/  His  government 
over  them;  and  besides  it  He  has  never  had  any  other.  The  deca- 
logue, declared  to  Israel  at  Sinai  through  Moses,  is  only  ten  special 
applications  of  it;  and  all  the  temporal  ordinances  and  sanctions 
connected  nuth  these  were  made  for  them  as  sinners,  were  designed 
to  bring  them  to  Christ,  and  were  all  to  pass  away  when  their  pur- 
pose should  be  fulfilled.*  The  Theocratic  government,  constituted 
by  that  law,  was  confined  to  them,  and  was  only  for  the  time  stated; 
but  His  moral  law  and  government  are  over  all  mankind  and  all 
moral  beings,  and  are  endless.  He  did  not  give  this  law  and  insti- 
tute this  government  at  Sinai,  but  when  He  created  moral  beings  with 
the  law  in  and  to  be  declared  to  them  by  their  moral  reason,  and  at- 
tested and  enforced  by  their  conscience;  and  He  thus  instituted  His 
government  for  them,  fiot  as  sinners,  but  as  such  beings.     Hence,  from 

(*)  Rom.  5:20;  7:6-13.  Gal.  3:19,  23,  24.  I.  Tim.  1:9,  10. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  LAW.  9 

their  first  moral  consciousness  they  are  knowingly  under  His  gov- 
ernment, and  can  no  more  escape  from  it  than  from  themselves.  A 
more  fantastic  notion  has  never  been  invented- than  that  of  a  law 
before  government,  impersotial,  and  having  only  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  obedience  or  disobedience  to  it  for  retributions.* 
Although  in  his  subsequent  work  on  Forgiveness  and  Law,  Dr. 
Bushnell,  in  a  qualified  way,  retracted  this  prodigious  invention, 
never  seen  with  the  eyes  nor  heard  of  with  the  ears  of  psycology, 
yet  I  notice  it  here,  because  I  design  to  show  that  the  notion  he 
assumed  in  it,  that  the  idea  of  right  is  a  law  apart  from  and  inde- 
pendent of  the  social  law,  and  the  only  form  in  which  moral  reason 
gives  the  law,  is  as  totally  visionary  as  the  rest  of  the  invention. 
He  calls  this  imagined  law  impersonal!  As  well  talk  of  thought 
without  a  thinker,  a  creature  without  a  creator,  or  an  effect  without 
a  cause;  for  what  conception  of  law  remains,  if  it  is  not  an  author- 
itative rule  of  moral  action,  declared  and  administered  by  an 
authoritative  person?  No  such  law  is  possible;  there  can  be  none 
but  the  one  social  moral  law;  and  however  faintly  it  may  be  recog- 
nized in  minds  sunk  in  selfish  perversion  and  its  darkness  from  their 
first  moral  action,  //  has  always  stood  i?i  consciousness  and  been 
attested  by  conscience  as  the  law  of  God,  or  whatever  tnen  have  substi- 
tuted for  Him — that  is,  as  His  imperative  legislation  declared  to  the 
inner  ear  of  the  spiritual  nature,  as  if  He  were  enthroned  in  or  speak- 
ing through  it.  The  Sinai,  from  which  He  gave  the  Theocratic  law 
to  Israel,  was  doubtless  designed  to  symbolize  this  incomparably 
greater  Sinai  in  every  moral  being,  from  which  He  declares  to  it 
His  eternal  law;  and  it  was  this  inward  legislation  that  rendered 
that  people  capable  of  receiving  that-  outward  legislation  with  a 
sense  of  moral  obligation  to  obey  it.  All  men,  the  most  barbarous 
scarcely  seemingly  excepted,  have  recognized  and  manifiested  this 
law  in  them,  with  such  applications  of  it  as  they  have  made  or 
received  from  their  progenitors,  as  from  God  or  their  gods,  and 
have  believed  that  He  or  they  will  certainly  uphold  and  vindicate 
it  by  positive  rewards  and'  punishments.f     Any  view  of  the  love  of 

(*)  See  Bushnell's  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  Part  III.,  chaps,  i  and  2. 

(f)  Note.  See  "Theology  of  the  Greek  Poets,"  by  Prof.  W.  S.  Tyler.  Homer's 
views  of  laws,  as  all  of  Jupiter,  p.  180.  Those  of  /Eschylus,  p.  220,  that  law  is  from 
the  goddess  Themis,  etc.  Compares  Hooker's  oft-cited  personification  of  law. 
Gives  several  instances  of  appeal  by  Sophocles  to  the  fundamental  laws  of  justice 
and  morality  as  those  of  Gotl  or  the  gods;  one  on  p.  29S  from  the  Tragedy  of  Ajax 
(line  1343  sqq),  which  warns  against  "contemning  Heaven's  eternal  laws";  and 
on  p.  320  the  very  remarkable  passage  in  Antigone  (line  450  sqq)  which  he  quotes, 
translated: — 


lo  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

angels  or  of  saints  made  perfect,  which  assumes  it  to  be  above  or 
different  from  obedience  io  this  law,  and  incompatible  with  being 
forever  under  this  government,  is  as  insubstantial  as  a  dream. |  It 
arises  partly  from  confounding  moral  love  with  mere  emotional  affec- 
tion, and  partly  from  confounding  God's  universal,  eternal  law  and 
government,  founded  in  all  rational  natures  by  the  imperative  which 
must  be  forever  in  them,  with  His  Theocratic  law  declared,  and  gov- 
ernment instituted,  at  Sinai,  through  Moses,  for  Israel  in  this  world. 

We  close  this  chapter  with  the  famous  passage  with  which 
Hooker  ended  the  first  book  of  his  Ecclesiastical  Polity.  "Where- 
fore that  here  we  may  briefly  end  :  Of  Law  there  can  be  no  less 
acknowledged,  than  that  her  seat  is  the  bosom  of  God,  her  voice 
the  harmony  of  the  world;  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  do  her 
homage,  the  very  least  as  feeling  her  care,  and  the  greatest  as 
not  exempted  from  her  power:  both  angels  and  men  and  creatures 
of  what  condition  soever,  though  each  in  different  sort  and  manner, 
yet  all  with  uniform  consent,  admiring  her  as  the  mother  of  their 
peace  and  joy." 

No  student  of  moral  science  should  fail  to  read  thoroughly  this 
first  book  of  the  work  of  that  great  author,  so  eminent  in  scholar- 
ship, vast  learning,  and  intellectual  insight  and  power.  This  book 
especially  is  replete  with  the  combined  products  of  these  surpassing 
qualities  in  relation  to  the  eternal,  immutable  Law  of  God,  making 
it  full  of  instruction  and  suggestion.  This  commendation  does  not 
mean  that  there  are  not  some  important  deficiencies  in  his  views 
of  the  Law,  nor  that  all  his  inferences  and  applications  as  he  pro- 
ceeds are  to  be  accepted,  but  is  confined  to  his  unfoldings  of  the 
great  essentials  of  the  subject  which  he  sets  forth. 

"Ne'er  did  eternal  Jove  such  laws  oulain, 
Or  Justice,  throned  amid  the  Infernal  Powers, 
Who  on  mankind  these  holier  rites  imposed. 
Nor  can  1  deem  thine  edict  armed  with  power 
To  contravene  the  firm  unwritten  laws 
Of  the  just  gods;  thyself  a  weak,  frail  mortal  1 
These  are  no  laws  of  yesterday:  'they  live 
Forevermore,  and  none  can  trace  their  birth." 
On  p.  338,  he  gives  a  translated  quotation  from  the  Oedipus  Tyrannus  (lines 
863-872),  which  is  a  vindication  by  the  chorus  of  eternal  truth  and  eternal  law: — 
"  Oh,  be  the  lot  forever  mine 
Unsullied  to  maintain. 
In  act  and  word,  with  awe  divine, 
What  potent  laws  ordain. 
Laws  spring  from  purer  realms  above  : 
Their  father  is  the  Olympian  Jove. 
Ne'er  shall  oblivion  veil  their  front  sublime. 
The  indwelling  god  is  great,  nov  dreads  the  waste  of  time. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  LAW. 


II 


The  assurance  of  positive  retributions  from  God  or  the  gods  is  often  and  pow- 
erfully expressed  by  all  these  ancient  poets. 

To  these  quotations  from  this  author,  I  add  two,  specially  remarkable  and 
important,  from  Cicero:  Est  quidem  vera  lex  recta  ratio,  naturae  congruens,  diffusa 
in  omnes,  constans,  sempiterna,  quae  vocet  ad  ofificium  iubendo,  vetando  a  fraud'e 
deterreat,  quae  tamen  neque  probos  frustra  iubet  aut  vetat,  nee  improbos  iubendo 
aut  vetando  movet.  Huic  legi  nee  obrogari  fas  est  neque  derogari  ex  hac  aliquid, 
licet  neque  tola  abrogari  potest,  nee  vero  aut  per  senatum  aut  per  populum  solvi 
hac  lege  possumus,  neque  est  quaerundus  explanator  aut  interpres  eius  alius,  nee  erit 
alia  lex  Romae,  alia  Athenis,  alia  nunc,  alia  posthac,  sed  et  omnes  gentes  et  omni 
tempore  una  lex  et  sempiterna  et  immutabil's  continebit,  unusque  erit  communis 
quasi  magester  et  imperator  omnium  deus:  ille  legis  huius  inventor,  disceptator, 
lator,  cui  qui  non  parebit,  ipse  se  fugiet  ac  naturam  hominis  aspernatus  hoc  ipso 
luet  maximas  poenas,  etiam  si  caetera  supplicia,  quae  putantur,  effugerit.  De  Re- 
publica.  Lib.  III.,  Cap.  xxii.,  §  33. 

M.  Hanc  igitur  video  sapientissimorum  fuisse  sententiam,  legem  neque  hom- 
inum  ingeniis  excogitatam,  nee  scitum  aliquod  esse  populorum,  sed  aeternum  quid- 
dam,  quod  universum  mundum  regeret,  imperandi  prohibendique  sapientia.  Ita 
principem  legem  illam  et  ultimam  mentem  esse  dicebant,  omnia  ratione  aut 
cogentis  aut  vetantis  dei:  Ex  qua  ilia  lex,  quam  di  humano  generi  dederunt,  recte 
est  laudata.  Est  enim  ratio  mensque  sapientis,  ad  iubendum  et  ad  deterrendum 
idonea.  Q.  *  *  *  M.  A  parvis  enim,  Quinte,  didicimus  si  IN  lu.s  vocAT  no 
et  eius  modi  leges  alias  nominare.  Sed  vero  intelligi  sic  oportet,  et  hoc  et  alia 
iussa  ac  vetita  populoruin  vim  habere  ad  recte  facta  vocandi  et  a  peccatis  avocandi, 
quae  vis  non  modo  senior  est  quam  aetas  populorum  et  civitatum,  sed  aequalis 
iilius  caelum  atque  terras  tuentis  et  regentis  dei.  Neque  enim  esse  mens  divina 
sine  ratione  potest  nee  ratio  divina  non  hanc  vim  in  rectis  pravisque  sanciendis 
habere,  nee,  quia  nusquam  erat  scriptum,  ut  contra  omnes  hostium  copias  in  ponte 
imus  adsisteret  a  tergoque  pontem  interscindi  iuberet,  idcirco  minus  Coclitem 
ilium  rem  gessisse  tantam  fortitudinis  lege  atque  imperio  putabimus,  nee,  si  reg- 
nante  L.  Tarquinio  nulla  erat  Romae  scripta  lex  de  stupris,  idcirco  non  contra 
illam  legem  sempiternam  Sex.  Tarquinius  vim  Lucretiae,  Tricipitini  filiae,  attulit. 
Erat  enim  ratio  profecta  a  rerum  natura  et  ad  recte  faciendum  impellens  et  a  de- 
licto avocans,  quae  non  tum  denique  incipit  lex  esse,  quum  scripca  est,  sed  turn, 
quum  orta  est:  orta  autem  est  simul  cum  mente  divina.  Quam  ob  rem  lex  vera 
atque  princeps  apta  ad  iubendum  et  ad  vetandum  ratio  est  recta  summi  lovis. 
Q.  *  *  *  M.  Ergo  ut  ilia  divina  mens  summa  lex  est,  item,  quum  in  homine 
est  perfecta,  est  in  mente  sapientis."     De  Legibus,  Lib.  II.,  Cap.  4,  5. 

This  fundamental  view  of  the  source  of  the  Divine  law  is  frequently  presented 
by  Cicero,  and  his  splendid  mind  realized  and  exulted  in  its  sublime  truth  and  im- 
portance. It  embodies  the  views  and  teachings  of  Plato  and  his  followers  in 
Greece,  and  of  the  ablest  and  best  of  the  theistic  and  ethical  philosophers  gen- 
erally before  Cicero's  time.  Chrysippus,  a  Stoic,  said  :  "  For  it  is  not  possible  to 
find  any  other  principle  or  origin  of  Justice  than  Jupiter  and  universal  natuie;  for 
there  we  must  always  begin  when  we  design  to  treat  of  Good  and  Evil." 

i\)  Bushnell's  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  pp.  256,  322. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ethical  justice  an  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law,  and  of  the  love  it 
enjoins  to  all  having  rights  to  it.  Ideas  of  this  quality  and  of  right. 
How  this  quality  has  always  been  estimated  by  mankind. 

§   12.    N'INK    POSTULATES    RESPECTING   JUSTICE   AS   A   QUALITY  OF   BOTH 
THE   LAW  AND  THE  LOVE  IT  ENJOINS  TO  ALL  HAVING  RIGHTS  TO  IT. 

AVe  now  revert  to  the  position  stated  under  Sec.  lo,  page  8,  that 
justice  is  an  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law,  and  constitutes  it  the  all- 
binding  intertie  of  moral  beings.  In  a  subsequent  place,  we  will 
consider  it  as  retributive,  but  here  only  as  ethical.  Is  it,  as  ethical, 
an  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law?  Does  the  imperative  or  mandate 
in  each  impose  on  him  an  obligation  of  justice,  as  already  explained, 
to  render  to  every  one,  present  in  fact  or  in  thought,  the  love  it  en- 
joins as  his  due  by  natural  right,  if  not  forfeited,  and  by  moral  right 
also,  if  he  has  acquired  it  by  obedience?  The  answer,  to  be  valid, 
must  accord  with  all  the  essential  postulates  related  to  it;  and  these 
we  must  notice. 

I.  Mankind,  by  their  spiritual  natures,  are  moral  beings.  Their 
reason  is  both  speculative  and  moral  or  practical.  As  moral,  when 
necessary  conditions  exist,  it  is  at  once  intuitive  and  affirmative  of 
all  fundamental  moral  relations,  truths,  and  obligations,  is  impera- 
tively legislative,  and,  in  conscience,  is  judicial  of  moral  action  and 
character.  Allied  to  it,  they  have  what  we  may  call  a  moral  sensi- 
bility, especially  when  it  imposes  obligation  and  in  conscience;  and 
they  have  power  of  will  to  determine  or  arbitrate  their  moral 
choices  and  executive  actions,  free  from  any  necessitating  compul- 
sion of  motives  before,  or  influences  upon,  them.  The  functions  of 
reason,  as  moral,  are  as  clear  and  self-certified  as  those  of  it  as 
speculative;  and,  by  it  and  the  other  faculties  mentioned,  mankind 
are  generically  distinguished  from,  and  immeasurably  exalted  above, 
all  irrational  creatures — vastly  more  than  by  reason  as  speculative, 
notwithstanding  all  its  grandeur  as  such. 


THE  NINE  POSTULATES.  13 

2.  They  become  moral  actors  or  agents  by  the  first  conscious 
issuance  of  the  imperative  of  the  law  within  them.  This,  with  the 
obligation  it  imposes,  compels  them  to  act  morally  in  obeying  or 
disobeying,  though  free  in  choosing  which  to  do;  and  such  agents 
or  actors  they  must  remain,  not  only  during  their  gracious  proba- 
tion, but,  in  some  sense,  forever.  Even  if  siezed  by  insanity  in  this 
life,  at  death,  if  not  before,  its  dread  eclipse  must  pass  away  forever 
from  all  incapacitated  by  its  obscuration,  leaving  them  as  if  it  had 
not  been. 

3.  Every  human  moral  agent  has  direct  knowledge,  by  intuition 
of  his  moral  reason,  of  the  spiritual  nature  and  its  essential  qualities 
of  every  other  moral  being,  present  or  thought  of,  as  the  same  in 
kind  as  his  own.  He  sees  the  bodies  of  others,  hears  their  voices, 
and  touches  them;  but  he  neither  sees,  hears,  nor  touches  their 
spiritual  natures;  yet,  without  an  instructor  or  any  process  of  reason- 
ing, and  not  by  instinct,  by  which  irrational  creatures  have  their  kind 
of  knowledge  of  each  other  and  of  man,  but  by  this  intuition,  he 
knows  what  instinct  never  could,  the  moral  nature  and  its  essential 
qualities  of  every  person  he  meets  or  thinks  of,  how  he  ought  to  act 
morally,  what  character  he  ought  to  possess,  that  he  has  in  him  the 
same  imperative  law  which  is  in  himself,  that  this  law  is  the  one 
only  standard  of  right  or  wrong  action  or  character  for  him  as  for 
himself,  and  even  for  God,  and  that  he  is  equally  as  responsible  and 
accountable  as  himself. 

4.  He  has  the  same  kind  of  intuitional  knowledge,  connected 
with  the  obliging  imperative  in  him,  that  he  and  every  other  one 
has  a  right  by  his  nature,  if  not  forfeited,  to  the  love  enjoined  on 
each  as  the  matter  of  the  law,  by  which  it  is  naturally  due  to  him 
and  every  other  one  from  every  one  in  perfect  reciprocity.  He  thus 
knows  that  this  right  belongs  even  to  children,  not  yet  moral  agents, 
and  to  idiots ;  and  so,  that  every  one  is  bound  by  an  obligation  of 
justice  to  render  this  love  to  every  other  one  as  his  due,  unless  he 
has  forfeited  this  right  by  sin. 

5.  He  knows,  in  the  same  way,  that  obedience  to  the  law,  or 
true  moral  love,  creates  an  additional  right  in  its  actor  to  the  same 
love  from  all  others  cognizant  of  it,  augmented  by  cherished  com- 
placency, and  by  gratitude  for  it  as  in  itself  benefaction,  as  well  as 
for  special  benefits  also,  if  he  has  conferred  any.  Thus  the  same 
love  of  every  cognizant  one  is  due  him  by  both  his  right  of  nature 
and  his  acquired  moral  right  or  rights.  His  radical  moral  right, 
created  by  obedience,  is  his  good-desert  by  it — that  is,  his  intuitively 


14  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

affirmed  desert  of  a  reward  in  kind  at  least  from  all  cognizant  of  it, 
God  included,  and  of  favors  besides.  It  is  by  intuition  alone  that 
men  know  that  pure  obedience,  or  moral  love,  creates  this  desert  or 
right,  and  that  all  aware  that  one  renders  it  oive  him  such  reward. 
We  will  see  farther  on  that  this  intuitive  affirmation  and  knowledge 
extend  even  to  natural  love  or  affection  consistent  with  moral,  though 
exercised  by  those  void  of  the  moral. 

6.  If  one  has  never  failed  to  render  the  love  to  God  and  man 
enjoined  by  the  law,  his  desert  of,  or  moral  right  to,  their  moral 
love,  including  cherished  complacency,  in  full  proportion  is  perfect; 
and  from  men  at  least  gratitude  for  it,  as  also  benefaction,  is  per- 
fectly due  to  him.  From  God,  he  deserves  the  reward  of  complete 
favor  and  all  communicable  good  with  protection  against  all  enemies 
and  injury  from  them,  unless  he  voluntarily  subjects  himself  to  them 
and  it  for  a  sufficiently  worthy  end,  which  he  has  a  perfect  right, 
and  may  have  an  obligation,  to  do,  in  which  case  he  deserves  from 
God  a  much  greater  reward.  From  men,  he  deserves  whatever 
they  can  confer  consistently  with  their  obligations  to  God  and  one 
another,  which  is  fitting.  As  both  this  right  and  the  natural  one 
relate  to  God,  they  stand  or  fall,  live  or  die,  together.  The 
obedience  which  creates  this,  preserves  that;  and,  if  this  should  be 
arrested  by  sin,  that  would  expire  with  it.  For,  by  intuitive  affirma- 
tion, sin  creates  a  desert  directly  opposite  to  that  of  obedience — 
that  of  punishment  from  God,  and  thus  both  forfeits  the  natural 
right  to  His  love  and  slays  the  moral.  To  say  that  one  deserves 
punishment  from  God,  and  yet  retains  either  of  these  rights  to  His 
love  is  a  contradiction.  Whatever  love  God  exercises  to  any  sinner 
while  such,  is  exercised,  not  because  it  is  due  to  him  by  either  of 
these  rights,  that  is,  by  any  obligation  of  justice,  but  as  pure  mercy 
alone  for  the  sake  of  his  good  and  that  of  all  others  connected  with 
him.  If,  on  the  contrary,  all  men  had  always  perfectly  obeyed  the 
law,  they,  like  the  holy  angels,  would  all  have  had  both  these  rights 
to  the  love  of  God,  angels,  and  each  other.  There  has  been  but  one 
in  all  time,  "Jesus  Christ  the  righteous,"  who  has  done  this,  and  thus 
deserved,  or  acquired  an  absolute  moral  right,  in  addition  to  his  nat- 
ural one,  to  the  greatest  possible  reward  from  God,  angels,  and  men.* 

7.  Have  those  of  mankind  who,  by  Divine  grace,  have  been 
renewed  to  obedience  or  moral  love,  though  imperfect,  any  moral 

(*)  See  Is.  53:10-12;  Phil.  2:5-11;  Ps.  45:6,  7,  with  Heb.  1:8,  9.  All  passages 
which  speak  of  His  exaltation  to  power,  honor,  glory,  and  universal  dominion  sig- 
nify His  reward  lor  His  obedience. 


THE  NINE  POSTULATES.  15 

right  to  the  love  of  God  and  other  beings?  We  answer  that,  as  sin 
does  not  change  essential  moral  nature,  the  law  is  still  in  and  from 
it,  the  one  immutable  rule  of  right  moral  action,  so  that  there  can 
be  no  such  action  which  is  not  obedience  to  it,  and  no  sin  not  dis- 
obedience to  it.  Nor,  as  moral  reason  in  conscience  attests,  can 
there  be  any  real  obedience  which  does  not  deserve  or  create  a 
right  to  a  proportional  reward,  nor  any  real  disobedience  or  sin 
which  does  not  alienate  all  natural  and  moral  right  to  God's  love 
and  create  a  desert  of  proportional  retributive  punishment.  Nor 
does  the  fact  that  the  moral  love  of  the  renewed  is  always  exercised 
under  the  power  of  God's  grace  conflict  with  the  fact  that,  by  the 
intrinsic  principle  of  the  law,  it  deserves,  while  exercised,  from  God 
the  reward  stated,  and  from  men  according  to  their  knowledge  of  it. 
So  Scripture  plainly  teaches.*  "  Love  is  of  God,"  as  are  created 
moral  natures  with  the  law  in  and  from  them  which  enjoins  it;  and 
He  recognizes  every  exercise  of  it  in  the  renewed,  nourishes  and 
cherishes  it,  constantly  forgives  its  fractures  on  the  ground  of 
Christ's  atonement  and  for  his  sake,  and  rewards  all  there  is  of  it 
according  to  the  principle  of  His  law  that  obedience  deserves  a 
proportional  reward. 

8.  As  hinted  under  No.  5,  even  natural  love  or  affection  con- 
sistent with  moral,  though  exercised  by  those  void  of  moral,  is 
intrinsically  benefaction  to  its  objects,  and  its  exerciser  always 
deserves,  not  from  God,  but  from  them,  a  reward  in  kind  at  least. 
This  principle  extends  to  all  real  or  apparent  actions,  courses,  and 
manifestations  of  good-will  to  or  regard  for  others — for  their  welfare, 
honor,  interest,  or  assumed  legitimate  pleasures.  We  speak  here 
of  the  principle  as  commonly  recognized  and  consented  to  among 
mankind  in  their  present  state,  which,  as  we  have  said,  is  abnormal 
and  anomalous,  being  that  of  sinners  put  on  a  gracious  probation. 
We  speak  of  it  as  recognized  in  reference,  not  only  to  those  who 
have  moral  love  to  God  and  man,  but  to  those  without  it,  many  of 
whom  are  openly  immoral  and  wicked,  some  even  criminal.  Not 
only  do  we  see  multitudes  of  such  preserving  and  exercising  their 
natural  affections  and  discharging  their  family,  social,  and  civil 
duties  more  or  less  commendably,  and,  beyond  the  ordinary  exer- 
cises of  affection  and  renderings  of  duty  in  these  relations,  making 

(*)  Ps.  19:11;  58:11;  Prov.  Il:i8;  23:18;  24:14;  Mat.  5:12;  6:1,4,  18;  10:41,42; 
16:27;  Mark9:4i;  Luke  6:23,  35;  14:14;  Rom.  2:6-11;  I.  Cor.  3:8,  14;  Col.  3:24; 
Heb.  10:35;  11:6,  26;  II.  John  8;  Rev.  Ii:l8;  22:12.  See  also  the  many  passages 
which  assert  the  rule  of  the  final  judgment  to  be,  that  every  one  shall  receive 
according  to  his  deeds,  his  works,  and  what  he  has  done,  good  or  bad. 


i6  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

the  greatest  sacrifices,  even  to  giving  up  their  lives,  for  those  to 
whom  they  are  tenderly  related,  but  often  in  their  social  and  civil 
relations  voluntarily  devoting  themselves  to  most  strenuous  and 
persistent  labors  of  body  and  mind;  to  vast  self-denials,  self-sacri- 
fices, and  struggles  against  difficulties  and  dangers  of  fearful  odds 
and  menace;  to  losses  of  possessions,  positions,  reputation,  friend- 
ships, and  all  commonly  held  most  dear  in  this  world ;  to 
greatest  hazard  and  often  certainly  of  appalling  deaths  in  emer- 
gencies of  fires,  floods,  shipwrecks,  railroad  collisions,  or  other 
disasters,  epidemics  or  other  contagious  diseases,  patriotic  wars 
and  battles;  to  actions  and  courses,  with  foresight  that  they  would 
more  probably  result  to  them  in  imprisonment,  exile,  confis- 
cation, or  death  in  some  terrible  form  than  in  success;  and  to  do, 
brave,  and  suffer  in  such  ways,  not  for  themselves,  but  for  others  of 
whatever  number,  very  frequently  entire  strangers,  or  for  themselves 
only  when  so  related  to  others  that  whatever  they  do  for  them  is 
also  for  themselves.  Besides  these,  very  many,  confer  vast  benefits 
on  communities,  cities,  a  state,  or  a  whole  country  by  providing  and 
bestowing  upon  them  institutions,  public  works,  and  other  benefac- 
tions of  great  value  and  utility.  There  is  no  end  to  the  number  and 
variety  of  such  self-devotements  and  benefactions,  bursting  out  of 
the  still  existing  moral  nature  of  human  sinners,  thick  and  bright 
as  the  stars  in  the  clear  midnight  heaven.  They  attest  what  that 
nature  was  originally  designed  to  be,  and  is  yet  capable  of  becom- 
ing, if  morally  and  religiously  rectified.  Such  affections  are  always 
beautiful,  and  such  generosities,  actions,  and  courses  are  alwaj's 
noble,  heroic,  and  often  sublime;  but,  since  they  are  exercised  and 
acted  alike  by  those  who  do,  and  those  who  do  not,  love  or  obey 
God,  by  the  best  and  often  the  worst  of  mankind,  it  is  plain  that, 
in  ihe?nselves,  they  are  not  real  obedience  to  His  laiv  and  do  not 
deserve  or  create  a  right  to  a  reward  of  any  kind  froiAI  Him.  But 
the  case  is  different  between  them  and  their  fellow  men,  because  the 
actions  and  courses  we  are  considering,  like  all  manifestations  of 
love,  not  only  moral,  but  natural,  consistent  with  moral,  are  bene- 
factions to  their  objects,  and  therefore  create  the  rights  of  desert  in 
their  actors  to  rewards  of  gratitude  and  its  manifestations,  and,  in 
most  cases,  to  rewards  of  complacency  and  honor /;-^//^  them  fittingly 
expressed  or  shown.  The  rewards  are  due  them  from  those  bene- 
fited by  obligations  of  justice,  which,  although  impairable,  can 
scarcely  be  cancelled  by  immoralities,  crimes,  or  enormities  perpe- 
trated by  the  actors  to  whom  the  rewards  are  due.    These  rights  and 


THE  Mine  postulates.  17 

dues,  obligations  and  debts,  are  known  by  mankind  by  intuitional 
affirmations  of  moral  reason,  just  as  those  created  by  obedience  to 
the  law  and  those  merely  natural  are.  Human  laws  can  neither  create, 
abolish,  change,  nor  enforce  them;  and,  if  rulers  or  others  should 
deny  or  decry  their  reality,  or  attempt  to  nullify  regard  for  them, 
they  would  incur  the  condemnation  of  all  intelligent  mankind.  It 
is  certainly  among  the  foremost  obligations  on  mankind  in  their 
domestic,  social,  and  civil  relations  to  recognize  and  duly  reward 
all  real  benefactors,  even  though  without  real  obedience  to  the  law, 
immoral,  wicked,  and  deserving  nothing  from  God,  but  punishment 
for  their  sins. 

9.  God  has  an  aggregate  of  rights  to  the  supreme  moral  love  of 
all  His  intelligent  creatures — that  by  His  infinite  nature;  that  by 
His  all-perfect  character;  that  by  creating,  preserving,  and  con- 
stantly lavishing  benefits  upon  them ;  that,  specially  related  to 
mankind,  by  all  He  has  done  and  is  doing  for  them  in  the  unspeak- 
able gift  of  His  Son  to  be  their  Saviour;  and  others  by  the  numerous 
other  gifts  clustering  around  this  supreme  one.  The  wrong  of  not 
rendering  to  Him  the  love  to  which  he  has  all  such  rights  in  abso- 
lute degree  is  immeasurably  greater  than  any  they  do  to  any  other 
being.  He  demands  it  as,  in  His  regard,  the  one  priceless  due  and 
good  from  them,  which,  if  they  do  not  render,  their  very  being 
becomes  valueless.  He  thus  regards  it,  because  He  is  a  Being  of 
holy  love,  called  Love  because  His  whole  heart  is  love;  and  love 
always  longs  and  calls  for  reciprocation  as  the  supreme  reward 
of  its  actor.  How  well  nigh  unparalleled,  then,  is  the  shallow 
absurdity  of  him  who  says,  that,  because  God  is  infinite  and  ap- 
proachless  by  men  to  benefit  Him  materially,  or  to  assassinate  or 
injure  Him,  He  has  none  of  the  right?  indicated  to  their  utmost 
love  and  service;  they  are  under  no  obligations  to  Him,  and  cannot 
benefit,  wrong,  nor  affect  Him  in  a  moral  sense  in  any  way  or 
degree;  and  therefore  they  need  not  regard  nor  concern  themselves 
about  Him,  but  should  care  only  about  their  fellow  men,  whom  they 
can  reach  and  benefit  or  injure,  can  treat  rightly  or  wrongly!  As  if 
God  were  not  a  moral  Being  having  a  conscience  and  a  heart  of  infi- 
nite sensibility,  and  were  not  necessarily  correspondingly  suscept- 
ible of  gratification  or  grief,  complacent  pleasure  or  a  sense  of  being 
wronged  according  as  men  do  or  do  not  regard  an;',  treat  Him  as  all 
His  rights,  natural  and  moral,  and  as  His  due  from  them  by  all 
His  boundless  deserts  of  the  rewards  of  their  perfect  good-will, 
complacency,  gratitude,   and  all   honoring   and   glorifying   recog- 


l8  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

nitions  and  manifestations  demand.  These  rights  of  God  to  the 
supreme  love  and  service  of  all  men,  which  make  all  these  due  to 
Him  from  them,  and  their  corresponding  obligations  and  debts  of 
justice  to  Him  are  intuitional  affirmations  of  moral  reason,  just  as 
those  between  men  are.  They  are  first  truths  of  ethical  science, 
and  can  only  be  denied  as  all  such  truths  are,  by  denying  the 
foundations  under  them,  either,  in  respect  to  men,  that  they  are 
moral  beings,  or,  in  respect  to  God,  that  He  is  such  a  Being,  or 
that  He  exists.  But  whoever  denies  these  foundations  and  these 
rights,  denies  the  possibility  of  a  moral  system  and  of  any  real 
moral  action,  as  will  appear  more  distinctly  in  the  sequel.  Such 
deniers  are  as  superficial  as  corks  on  the  surface  of  water,  never 
going  below  it,  much  less  to  its  bottom,  but  floating  and  bobbing 
around  upon  it. 

§  13.    WHAT  THE  LOVE  MUST  BE  TO  ALL  HAVING  RIGHTS  TO  IT. 

Now,  with  these  postulates  in  mind  as  grounds  and  directories, 
the  question  comes,  what  must  the  love  enjoined  by  the  law  be  to 
all  who  have  these  rights,  in  proportion  as  they  have  them  ? 

Mankind,  nature-taught,  spontaneously  and  constantly  assume 
and  appeal  to  these  postulates,  and  specially  to  these  natural  and 
moral  rights  and  dues  on  one  side,  and  to  the  correlative  obligations 
and  debts  on  the  other,  as  the  interbinding  grounds  and  reasons  of 
their  mutualities  of  duty;  and  they  have  always,  natura  duce,  sub- 
stantially agreed  in  defining  ethical  justice  as  rendering  to  all  their 
dues — all  to  which  they  have  a  right  and  claim  by  nature  or  other- 
wise. Cicero  says — Jiistiiia  est  constans  et  perpetiia  voluntas  suiim 
cuiqiie  tribundi.  Understanding  by  siium  caique  that  which  is  due 
to  every  one  by  right  of  nature,  desert,  or  any  honest  title,  his  defi- 
nition is  essentially  true.  Because  men  have  these  ideas  or  intui- 
tional affirmations  of  all  natural  and  moral  rights  and  dues,  and  of 
all  expressed  by  the  terms,  obligations,  owing,  paying,  deserving, 
rewarding,  wages,  debts,  claims,  and  equity,  the  imperative  of  the 
law  in  each  of  them  is  to  render  pure  good-will  or  moral  love  to  all 
others,  present  or  thought  of,  in  all  regard  and  treatment  of  them 
in  their  relations,  according  to  all  their  known  rights  and  dues.  To 
say  that  the  terms  named,  wages  excepted,  when  used  to  express 
moral  and  religious  truths,  are  used  figuratively,  and  are  derived 
from  the  market  and  human  courts  is  to  reverse  the  order  of  facts. 
The  market  and  courts  have  derived  them  and  their  meanings  from 
the  source  of  them  both,  which  is  the  quality  of  ethical  justice  in 


LIKE   TERM  TN  ALL  LANGUAGES.  ,g 

the  law  given  by  moral  reason.  These  and  other  like  terms  in  all 
languages  express  the  same  ideas,  those  of  the  natural  and  moral 
rights  and  duties  of  men,  and  attest  their  recognition  of  these  ideas 
as  involved  in,  and  the  basis  of,  all  business  transactions  and 
mutualities  of  treatment.  They  express  the  ideas  all  men  have  of 
either  the  great  primary  principle  of  ethical  justice  in  the  law,  that 
of  the  mutual  due  and  debt  of  moral  love,  or  special  applications 
of  that  principle  to  men  in  particular  relations  of  business  or  of  a 
directly  moral  or  religious  kind.  They  express  these  normally  or 
literally  as  the  only  terms  by  which  they  can  be  expressed,  and  are 
therefore  in  origin  and  common  use  utterly  independent  of  all 
markets  and  courts.  They  are  no  more  figurative  when  one  speaks 
of  the  due  or  debt  of  love,  gratitude,  honor,  respect,  obedience,  or 
any  like  action  or  treatment,  or  of  owing  ox  paying  any  of  these,  or 
of  deserving  or  having  a  claim  to  a  reward,  or  of  paying  a  penalty, 
or  of  getting  \\\%  pay,  using  these  terms  in  a  moral  or  religious  sense, 
than  when  he  uses  them  in  business  or  in  courts.  If  they  are  figur- 
ative, thus  used,  what  terms  could  express  the  same  ideas  of  most 
of  them  normally  or  literally? 

§  14.    THE  LOVE  ENJOINED  ON   EACH  TO  GOD,  AND  ALL  HAVING    RIGHTS 
TO  IT  IS  JUST  LOVE. 

The  love  therefore  enjoined  upon  each  one  by  the  imperative 
of  the  law  to  God,  and  to  other  moral  things,  present  or  thought  ot, 
who  have  not  forfeited  their  right  or  rights  to  it  by  sin,  is  just  love — 
just  good-will  both  in  quality  and  in  end,  because  it  is  a  will  to  render 
them  all  their  dues  according  to  all  the  rights  they  have.  This  dis- 
closes clearly  the  concrete  and  social  nature  of  the  law  and  of  moral 
beings.  For,  if  they  have  a  right  by  their  common  nature  to  each 
other's  moral  love,  by  which  it  is  mutually  due  and  owed,  it  is,  on 
this  ground  alone.,  simple  ethical  justice  in  each  to  render  it  to  each, 
and  positive  injustice  not  to  do  so;  and  if,  in  addition,  they  have, 
by  obedience  or  right  action,  the  moral  right  or  rights  of  good- 
desert,  or  desert  of  reward  in  kind  at  least,  to  each  other's  love,  so 
that  it  is  morally  as  well  as  naturally  due  to  each  from  each,  it  is,  by 
such  addition,  also  purely  ethical  justice  in  each  to  render  it  to 
each,  and  additional  positive  injustice  not  to  render  it  to  him, 
because  not  rendering  it  is  doing  the  opposite.  This  does  not  show 
that  justice  is  love,  but  that  it  is  an  essential  quality  of  the  law,  of 
all  action  by  it  towards  others  who  have  rights,  and  of  all  moral 
nature,  the  bond  inherent  in  all  these  which  ties  all  to  render  such 


20  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

love  to  God  and  each  other.  And,  since  by  this  bond  every  one  is 
thus  tied  to  render  this  as  due  from  him  to  each  and  all,  lie  catinot 
really  render  it  to  any,  if  not  in  principle  and  spirit  to  all — to  God,  if 
not  to  ?nan — to  man,  if  not  to  God — to  any  number  of  men,  if  not  to  all 
as  due  by  the  manifested  character  and  deserts  of  each.  Rendering  it 
to  one  because  it  is  his  due  by  right  or  rights  involves  doing  the 
same  in  principle  and  spirit  to  all,  and  is  therefore y«i-//V^  to  all;  and 
doing  the  opposite  to  any  number  involves  the  same  universality  of 
principle  and  spirit,  and  is  therefore  injustice,  not  to  that  number 
only,  but  potentially  to  all  moral  beings.  As,  by  this  quality  of 
justice,  the  law  is  impartial  and  universal,  so  must  the  love  be  which 
it  requires;  and  so  must  the  injustice  be  of  withholding  it  from  any 
'as  entitled  to  receive  it.  Conscience  has  always  taught  mankind 
that  selfishness  or  injustice  against  one  is  potentially  against  all,  and 
the  involved  contrary,  that  true  moral  love  to  one  is  potentially  to 
all,  as  it  proves  a  heart  to  love  all  and  to  wrong  none. 

§  15.    HOW   THE    INTUITION   OF  THIS    QUALITY  OF  JUSTICE   IN   THE    LAW 
AND  IN  OBEDIENCE  HAS  LED  MEN  TO  CHARACTERIZE  THEM. 

It  is  this  quality  of  justice  in  the  law,  ever  clear  and  immutable 
in  all  conscious  minds,  which  has  caused  mankind  in  all  ages  to 
characterize  it  as  a  straight  line,  (orthos,  rectus,  recht,  right) — 
obedience  to  it  as  having  the  quality  of  straighiness,  or  of  being 
straight  action,  (righteousness,  rectitude) — disobedience  to  it  as 
crooked  or  twisted  action,  (wrong) — and  the  character  formed  by 
disobedience  to  it  as  not  straight,  lacking  straighiness,  (unright- 
eousness)— also  the  character  formed  by  obedience  as  uprightness, 
as  if  the  law  were  a  perpendicular  straight  line,  and  disobedience  as 
departure  or  deviation  (sin),  and  as  going  across  a  straight  line, 
(transgression).  These  conceptions  are  not  consciously  invented 
images  or  figures.  They  are  given  by  moral  reason  just  as  that  of  a 
geometrical  straight  line  is  by  speculative  reason.  But  the  concep- 
tion or  idea  of  straight  or  right  is  never  given  as  either  the  law 
itself,  or  action  or  character  conformed  to  it,  but  only  as  an  inherent 
quality  or  characteristic  of  it.  But  it  is  important  to  note  that  it  is 
almost  always  action  or  character,  done  or  thought  of,  and  very 
seldom  the  law  itself,  that  men  characterize  as  straight  or  right. 
The  law  in  them  is  the  standard  by  which  they  spontaneously,  and 
generally  even  unconsciously,  discern  and  pronounce  action  or 
character  right  or  wrong,  straight  or  crooked;  and  it  is  its  quality 
of  justice,  not  its  matter  of  love,  that  constitutes  it  this  standard. 


''THE  IDEA  OF  RIGHT.''  2i 

Hence,  when  action  or  character  is  pronounced  right,  straight,  it  is 
not  the  matter  of  either  of  them  that  is  intended,  but  its  ethical 
quality  of  justice  as  conformed  to  this  standard;  just  as  an  extended 
material  object  is  called  straight  because  seen  to  be  conformed  to  a 
geometrical  straight  line.  Hence,  it  is  of  no  importance  whether 
the  term  ?-ight  be  used  as  an  adjective  or  as  a  noun,  whether  respect- 
ing the  law,  or  action  or  character  conformed  to  it,  as  it  never 
expresses  the  actual  fact  or  matter  of  either  of  them,  but  simply  its 
possession  of  this  quality  of  justice;  and  Kant  speaks  truth  when  he 
says — "  The  conception  of  straight  contains  nothing  of  quantity, 
but  only  a  quality."  If  I  say,  that  is  an  oak  tree,  the  term  oak 
does  not  signify  the  matter  of  the  tree,  which  is  wood,  but  only 
its  peculiar  quality  as  of  the  species  of  trees  called  oak;  and,  if  I 
say,  an  oak  is  hard,  tough,  or  strong,  I  do  not  in  the  least  change 
the  qualitative  meaning  of  the  term  oak  by  thus  using  it  as  a  noun. 
It  designates  the  peculiar  kind  of  tree  or  wood  it  is  by  expressing 
its  quality. 

§  l6.    THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  REASON,  AND  "THE  IDEA  OF  RIGHT." 

Readers  not  versed  in  discussions  of  intellectual  and  moral 
philosophy  can  pass  this  section  and  the  one  following  without 
detriment  to  their  understanding  of  what  follows,  as  they  have  refer- 
ence to  Dr.  Bushnell's  notion  of  a  law  before  government. 

Reason  has  two  generic  functions,  one  called  speculative,  the 
other  practical  or  moral.  The  ideas  of  space,  of  time,  or  of  cause 
are  intuitional  affirmations  by  reason,  as  speculative,  of  the  uncon- 
ditioned and  necessary  existence  of  the  objects  of  those  ideas.  The 
objects  cannot  even  be  thought  to  be  mere  qualities  of  other  things. 
They  are  affirmed  as  real  entities  in  and  of  themselves,  and  their 
names  are  nouns  Such  intuitional  affirmations  are  the  primary, 
underlying  truths  of  all  the  mathematical  and  really  natural  sciences. 
None  of  them  have  any  moral  quality;  and  they  are  universal  im- 
mutable, and  eternal.  It  is  one  distinct  function  of  reason  to  give 
these  ideas;   and,  in  it,  it  is  called  speculative. 

Its  function  as  moral  (\\vidt%  into  two,  clearly  distinct.  Of  these, 
one  consists  in  affirming  the  one  only  law  or  rule  for  all  moral  action, 
as  shown  in  Chapter  I.  In  this,  it  is  entirely  legislative,  its  business 
being,  not  to  give  any  ideas,  except  as  involved  in  or  directly  con- 
nected with  the  law,  but  to  issue  or  affirm  it  as  the  only  standard 
for  the  action  of  the  will,  and  to  enjoin  or  forbid  special  actions  and 
courses  executive  or  violative  of  its  mandates.     Thus,  with  its  per- 


22  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

sistent  "You  must,"  or  "must  not;"  "You  shall,"  or  "shall  not;" 
"Do,"  or  "do  not;"  it  legislates  in  all  from  their  first  moral  con- 
sciousness, as  if  it  were  the  deputy  and  very  mouth  of  God,  putting 
each  under  an  absolute  bond  of  obligation  to  obey  Hito,  from  which 
he  can  never  be  released.  The  law  thus  given,  however  developed 
in  any  mind,  is  identical  with  that  of  Scripture,  and  the  only 
standard  of  right  moral  action. 

The  other  function  of  reason  as  moral  is  judicial  respecting 
moral  action,  done  or  thought  of,  and  moral  character  As  it  is  in 
the  composite  faculty  of  conscience,  it  peculiarly  acts  in  this  func- 
tion respecting  each  one's  own  action  and  character;  but  also  in  a 
modified  way  respecting  the  action  and  character  of  others  of  any 
number  or  relations,  and  of  even  fictitious  persons,  necessarily 
issuing  its  intuitional  decisions  or  judgments  res^Decting  them  as 
according  to  or  against  the  law  given  by  it,  or  any  of  its  known  or 
supposed  applications.  If  approved  by  it,  as  according  to  this 
standard,  they  are  characterized  by  it  as  right  or  straight;  if  disap- 
proved, they  are  characterized  by  it  as  turong  or  crooked;  and,  in  all 
these  decisions,  these  terms,  like  just  and  unjust,  are  adjectives, 
expressing  the  moral  quality  of  the  action  or  character.  This  must 
be  so,  because  both  action  and  character  are  phenomena  or  pro- 
ducts of  the  will,  the  one  direct,  the  other  a  consequence  of  that,  so 
that  they  are  things  of  experience  and  observation,  and  not  of  intu- 
ition at  all.  But  the  moral  quality  of  each  is  a  thing  which  moral 
reason  alone,  as  judicial  or  in  conscience,  can  see  and  affirm.  When 
either  of  the  terms,  right  or  wrong,  qualifies  the  noun  character, 
this  noun  is  expressed;  but  when  it  does  the  noun  action,  this  noun 
is  commonly  not  expressed,  but  understood,  because  it  is  essentially 
implied  in  it,  as  follows: — The  idea  of  right  or  wrong  [action];  Do 
right,  or  do  not  wrong  [action] ;  It  is,  or  it  is  not  right  or  wrong 
[action]  ;  He  will,  or  will  not,  do  right  or  wrong  [action].  So,  either 
of  these  terms  is  used  to  qualify  any  noun  which  involves  the  mean- 
ing of  moral  action,  such  as  intention,  choice,  course,  conduct,  walk, 
talk,  or  any  other;  and  this  usage  seems  common  to  all  languages. 
The  fact,  that  these  terms,  so  used,  always  signify  the  moral  quality 
of  action,  done  or  thought  of,  and  just  as  much  when  that  noun  is 
understood,  as  if  it  were  expressed,  shows  that  they  are  always 
adjectives  qualifying  that  noun  or  any  other  involving  its  meaning, 
though  understood. 

It  may  aid  to  clear  the  matter  to  look  at  it  in  a  series  of  propo- 
sitions  and  conclusions: — i.    Reason,  as  legislative,    contains   and 


"  THE  IDEA  OF  RIGHT.''  ^-» 

-J 

gives  tiie  law,  as  the  sole  rule  and  standard  of  moral  action — 2.  All 
such  action  either  agrees  or  disagrees  with  this  only  rule  and 
standard  in  all — 3.  No  action  is,  in  itself,  an  object  of  intuition — 4, 
The  function  of  reason,  as  judicial,  or  in  conscience,  relates  solely  to 
such  action  as  this  one  law  enjoins  or  forbids;  and  it  is  wholly  acted 
in  intuitional  decisions  or  judgments  respecting  the  moral  quality  of 
the  action,  or  of  the  actor  in  it,  (for  it  belongs  to  the  actor's  inten- 
tion or  aim  in  the  action),  as  agreeing  or  disagreeing  with  that  one 
standard  or  law — 5.  Since  reason,  as  moral,  intuitively  characterizes 
its  law  as  straight  or  right,  it,  in  like  manner,  characterizes  action 
according  to  it  as  straight  or  right;  and,  if  not,  as  ivrong,  crooked, 
unrighttows — 6.  Hence,  these  two  terms  always  express  opposite 
decisions  or  judgments  of  moral  reason  respecting  the  moral 
quality  of  action,  or  of  the  actor  in  it — 7.  The  certain  conclusion 
from  all  these  propositions  is,  that,  whenever  these  words,  right  and 
wrong,  relate  to  moral  action,  they,  like  the  terms  just  and  unjust, 
express  nothing  whatever  but  qualities  of  action,  done  or  thought 
of,  or  of  its  actor  in  it,  as  accordant  with  or  violative  of  the  law  in 
and  from  reason,  and  are  necessarily  only  adjectives.  These  intui- 
tive decisions  or  judgments  of  reason,  as  judicial,  respecting  actions 
as  right  or  wrong,  give  us  our  knowledge  of  them  as  moral.  They 
primarily  relate  to  the  intention,  aim,  design,  or  spirit  of  the  actor 
in  his  action,  but  are  also  continually  given  as  decisions  on  the 
agreement  or  disagreement  of  the  domestic,  social,  civil,  or  other 
actions  of  others  in  all  relations  and  of  all  times  with  the  law,  or 
with  recognized  special  applications  of  it,  or  with  even  the  prin- 
ciples of  mere  formal  morality.  In  giving  them,  the  moral  reason  of 
mankind,  as  judicial,  with  such  light  as  they  have  here  or  there, 
now  or  then,  especially  as  they  have  any  where  received  from  the 
Scriptures,  constitutes  the  one  great  tribunal  of  judgment  for  all, 
which  never  adjourns.  It  is  in  this  function,  that  it  decides  what 
ought  or  ought  not  to  have  been,  or  to  be,  should  or  should  not  have 
been  or  be,  done — that  is,  what  is  or  is  not  otved  or  obligatory  by  the 
law — 8.  The  fact,  that  the  law  is  the  only  standard  of  moral  action, 
adds  verification  to  the  position  that  these  two  terms,  when  used  in 
reference  to  moral  action,  cannot  be  nouns;  for  there  is  no  need,  use, 
nor  place  for  another  law  or  rule  more  than  for  another  atonement. 
There  is  none  for  a  duplicate  of  that  which  all  viien  have;  and 
certainly  none  for  one  contrary  to  it.  Besides,  the  term  right  cannot 
be  a  noun,  because,  as  v/e  shall  sec  further  on,  there  could  be  noth- 
ing of  law  or  obligation  in  its  meaning. 


24  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

All  thus  shown  respecting  these  terms  in  our  language  is  equally 
true  of  the  corresponding  terms  in  Greek,  Latin,  German,  and  other 
languages.  It  is  clear  that,  when  used  with  nouns  signifying  moral 
action,  they  always  express,  not  action  only,  but  action  having  one 
or  the  other  of  the  qualities  signified  by  them  as  pertaining  to  it,  and 
no  intellectual  abstractions,  entities,  or  objects  separate  from  it. 
Hence,  the  decisions  or  judgments  of  moral  reason,  as  judicial, 
respecting  the  qualities  of  moral  action  expressed  by  these  terms, 
are  the  only  ideas  of  right  and  of  wro/ig  action  which  men  have,  or, 
for  the  reasons  shown,  can  have;  and,  as  qualities  exist  only  because 
the  entities  or  objects  do  to  which  they  belong,  so  neither  these 
qualties  nor  these  terms  which  express  them  would  ever  have  been 
thought  of,  but  for  the  antecedent,  conditioning  knowledge  of  the 
law  in  and  given  by  moral  reason,  as  legislative,  and  ot  the  action 
enjoined  by  it  and  of  that  which  violates  it.  The  fact  that  the  intu- 
itional decision  or  judgment  of  moral  reason,  as  judicial,  that  this 
or  that  action  is,  or  has  the  quality  of  being,  right  or  wrong,  follows 
the  knowledge  of  the  action  done  or  thought  of  as  quick  as  a  light- 
ning flash  conflicts  in  no  way  with  this  position;  for,  in  all  its  radical 
intuitions  and  action,  reason  "takes  no  note  of  time."  As  the  law 
given  by  it  as  the  only  rule  and  standard  of  moral  action  is  char- 
acterized by  it  as  straight,  right,  so  its  intuitional  decision  respecting 
the  quality  of  such  action,  as  agreeing  or  disagreeing  with  that  rule 
and  standard,  is,  if  it  agrees,  that  it  does  and  is  straight  or  right; 
if  it  does  not,  that  it  does  not  and  is  crooked,  wrong,  unrz^^/eous. 
We  repeat,  then,  for  all  the  reasons  shown,  our  conclusion,  as  firmly 
true,  that  these  intuitional  decisions  or  judgments  of  moral  reason, 
as  judicial,  respecting  moral  action  are  men's  only  ideas  of  right  and 
wrong,  (for  there  is  an  idea  of  wrong  as  well  as  of  right). 

If  this  conclusion  is  rejected,  and  the  use,  in  Greek,  of  orthon 
with  the  article,  and,  in  Latin,  of  rectum,  as  if  nouns,  is  adduced 
against  it,  we  defend  it  as  follows: — The  use  of  the  article  with  the 
Greek  neuter  adjective  in  no  way  converts  this  into  a  noun  in  mean- 
ing, more  than  its  use  with  an  infinitive  verb  converts  it  into  one,  or 
than  the  use,  in  English,  of  the  definite  article  with  the  adjectives, 
true,  beautiful,  and  good  converts  them  into  nouns  in  meaning.  As 
both  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  adjectives  named  relate  to  moral 
action,  they  necessarily  express  its  intuitional  quality  as  straight, 
right,  according  to  the  law  as  straight.  Suppose,  then,  we  abstract 
ifi  thought  this  quality  from  the  action,  and  make  it  an  object,  as 
much  as  possible,  in  itself,  so  as  to  use  the  adjective  expressing  it 


THE  IDEA  OF  RIGHT  ABSURD.  25 

as  if  ^  noun,  how,  we  ask,  can  these  mental  operations,  not  intui- 
tional, change  any  of  the  following  facts?— the  fact  that  the  quality 
remains  precisely  as  before?— or  the /a^/  that  an  intuition  or  idea 
of  it  would  never  have  been  had,  but  for  the  prior  knowledge  or 
thought  of  the  conditioning  action  as  related  to  the  law? — or  the 
fact  that,  as  this  quality  is  conditioned  for  its  origin,  upon  the 
knowledge  or  thought  of  the  action,  the  intuition  or  idea  of  it  must 
also  be  conditioned? — or  \\\q  fact  that,  as  from  its  nature,  the  moral 
quality  of  an  action  cannot  possibly  be  changed,  neither  can  the 
adjective  that  expresses  it  in  any  language  be  changed  into  a  noun, 
unless  in  a  quasi  way,  or  into  anything  else  than  an  adjective  with  a 
noun  of  action  understood  after  it,  which  it  qualifies? 

§  17.  bushnell's  notion  of,  and  inferences  from,  the  idea  of 

right  absurd. 

We  therefore  reject,  as  both  psycologically  and  Scripturally 
untrue,  the  notion  of  an  idea  of  right,  if  right  is  taken  as  a  noun 
signifying  any  intuitional  entity  or  object,  which  is  neither  a  quality 
of  the  law  nor  of  moral  action  according  to  it,  but  apart  from  both, 
or  as  not  an  adjective  expressing  the  quality  of  such  moral  action. 
We  can  scarcely  think  of  any  specimens  of  that  notion  more  object- 
ionable than  the  following: — "In  the  same  way  is  developed  the 
grand,  all-regulative  Moral  Idea  of  Right;  which  to  simply  think  is 
to  be  put  in  everlasting  obligation.  For  it  is  the  distinction  of  this 
idea,  that  it  is  the  Monarch  Principle  of  the  Soul.  It  puts  all  moral 
natures  under  an  immediate,  indefeasible  bond  of  soverignty.  They 
become  moral  natures  because  they  are  set  before  this  idea  of 
right."  (Bushnell's  "Vicarious  Sacrifice,"  p.  236.)  "All  moral 
beings,  united  thus  in  their  homages  to  right,  will  be  united  also  in 
'love;  love  to  each  other,  and  love  to  the  law,  by  which  they  are  set 
in  society  and  everlasting  chime  together,  as  in  ways  of  mutual 
right-doing.  Indeed,  the  necessary  and  absolute  law  of  right,  thus 
accepted,  is  very  nearly  answered  by  the  relational  law  of  love;  so 
that  any  realm  of  being,  compacted  in  right,  will  certainly  be  unified 
in  love,  etc.,"  (p.  240).  "The  two  principles,  right  and  love,  appear 
to  exactly  measure  each  other.  One  is  the  law  absolute  or  ideal, 
commanding  the  soul,  even  if  it  were  to  exist  in  solitude;  the  other 
is  the  law  relational,  grounded  on  the  sense  of  relationship  to  other 
beings,  who  may  be  socially  affected  by  our  acts.  *  *  *  The 
law  of  love  appears  to  be,  in  some  sense,  a  law  of  revelation,  as  the 
law  of  right  is  not,"  (p.  306).     "  God  then  does  not  make  the  law 


26  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

of  love,  or  impose  it  upon  us  by  His  own  mere  will.  It  is  with  Him 
an  eternal,  necessary,  immutable  law,  existing  in  logical  order  before 
His  will,  and  commanding,  in  the  right  of  its  own  excellence,  His 
will  and  life.  This  being  given,  all  His  plans,  decrees,  creations, 
and  executory  statutes  are  built  to  it,  as  the  heavens  by  the  eternal 
laws  of  geometry.  And  so,  all  government  being  cast  in  this 
mold,  God  is  united  to  creatures,  creatures  to  God  and  each 
other,  by  one  common  term,  which  interprets  and  unifies  all. 
Were  there  any  being,  whether  Creator  or  creature,  who  had  a 
different  kind  of  law,  prescribing  a  different  kind  of  virtue,  he 
would  be  unintelligible  to  the  others,  and  practically  unrelated  to 
them,"  (pp.  308,  309). 

Now,  we  agree,  of  course,  with  much  in  these  quotations,  and 
entirely  with  the  last  of  them.  But  we  make  them  to  show  the  real 
confusion  which  this  notion  of  a  "  Moral  Idea  of  Right,"  distinct 
from  what  this  author  calls  the  relational  law  of  love  and  from 
action  conformed  to  it,  inevitably  causes.  Look  at  it.  i.  It  makes 
two  laivs,  one  not  an  imperative  rule  of  action  at  all,  but  an  idea  of 
some  strange,  abstract,  non-descript  entity  called  right,  who  knows 
what?  2.  This,  Jonah-like,  has  to  be  pitched  overboard  to  give  a 
safe  voyage  and  fit  haven  to  the  real  and  only  law  of  moral  love,  as 
set  forth  in  the  last  quotation,  by  which  the  possibility  of  another  is 
utterly  excluded.  3.  But  how,  we  ask,  can  an  idea  be  a  law  or 
authoritative  rule  of  action  ?  If  this  idea  of  right  is  an  idea  of 
it  as  distinct  from,  and  not  a  quality  of,  the  relational  law,  nor  of 
obedience  to  it,  and  is  not  itself  relational,  in  what  possible  way  or 
sense  can  thinking  it  put  the  thinker  in  everlasting  or  any  obligation, 
since  obligation  is  always  relational,  is  always  to  one  or  more  present 
or  thought  of,  or  to  self  objectized?  Obligation  then  to  tuhoni? — to 
what,  if  not  to  render  moral  love  or  good-will  and  its  executive  acts 
to  others  or  to  self?  Is  an  idea  an  imperative  or  mandate,  or  does 
it  include  one,  to  constitute  obligation? — especially  if  it  is  not 
relational?  How,  then,  can  it,  by  any  possibility,  be  a  "law  abso- 
lute or  ideal,"  or  a  law  or  authoritative  rule  of  action  at  all? — how 
"all-regulative,"  if  not  relational? — how  "the  Monarch  Principle 
of  the  Soul,"  or  any  Principle  at  all  in  the  sense  intended?  In  that 
sense,  what  can  it  be,  but  as  groundless  a  fiction  as  any  in  the 
Arabian  Nights  ?  In  that  sense,  it  is  not  identical  with,  but  exclu- 
sive of,  the  idea  of  justice;  for  justice  is  always  purely  relational, 
or  properly  social,  and  the  idea  of  it  as  a  quality  of  the  law  by  its 
imperative  is  just  that  which  constitutes  the  law  the  one  social  inter- 


THE  IDEA   OF  RIGHT  ABSURD.  27 

tying  bond  of  the  universe  of  moral  beings.  They  do  not  "become 
such  because  they  are  set  before  this  idea  of  right,"  but  are  such  by 
creation,  thus  having  the  law  in,  and  enjoined  upon,  them  by  the 
imperative  of  their  practical  reason,  and  sanctioned  and  enforced 
by  the  whole  action  of  their  conscience.  It  is  this  quality  of  justice 
in  the  law  by  its  imperative  that  makes  the  love  enjoined  by  it  uni- 
versally mutually  oived  and  mutually  due,  and  not  restrictable  to 
any  number  of  selected  objects.  Rendering  this  love  is  the  only 
ethical  justice,  and,  within  the  whole  circle  of  the  obligations  of 
justice,  is  the  only  real  right  action,  so  that,  within  that  circle, 
justice  and  right  are  absolutely  identical,  and  the  true  idea  of  either 
of  them  is  the  same  of  the  other — that  of  an  essential  quality  of  the 
law  and  of  the  love  which  is  its  matter  and  fulfills  it.  4.  Out  ot 
this  circle,  there  is  moral  action  which  is  right  in  a  different  sense, 
but  cannot  be  called  just  to  its  objects.  Merciful  or  gracious  action 
is  not  just  to  them,  because  it  is  not  according  to  any  obligation  ot 
justice  to  them,  but  it  is  right,  because  there  is  an  imperative  to  it, 
when  consistent  with  justice,  which  it  is  right  to  obey.  In  brief, 
all  moral  action  conformed  to  the  law  is  right;  but  only  that  which 
is  conformed  to  the  obligations  of  justice  imposed  by  the  law  is  just; 
and  so  far  right  and  just  are  identical.  But,  when  we  say  of  merci- 
ful or  gracious  action,  it  is  right,  this  term  has  plainly  an  essentially 
different  meaning  from  what  it  has  when  we  say  of  action  demanded 
by  any  obligation  of  justice,  it  is  right.  The  former  meaning  is  not 
concerned  in  the  inquiry  respecting  its  meaning  in  the  expression, 
the  idea  of  right.  In  this,  is  its  i^ieaning  different  from,  or  identical 
with  that  of  justice  ?  I  maintain  their  identity,  and  that  the  idea 
of  it  is  not,  like  the  geometrical  idea  of  a  point  or  a  straight  line, 
unrelational,  but  is  always  and  necessarily  relational  identically 
with  the  law — that  is,  it  is  an  idea  of  moral  action  obligatory  upon 
its  subject,  to  be  rendered  by  him  to  others  or  to  God  as  their  or 
His  due,  and  of  just  that  kind  which  the  law  requires.  The  distinc- 
tion between  reason  as  speculative  and  as  practical  or  moral  \%  a  very 
old  one,  not  first  made  by  Kant,  who  recognized  it  as  fundamentally 
true,  and  necessary  in  order  to  the  possibility  of  any  ethical  or 
religious  law  or  system.  According  to  it,  ideas  of  reason  as  specu- 
lative are  not  relative,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  morality  or 
religion,  while  those  of  it  as  practical  or  moral  are  all  relative,  all 
exclusively  related  to  moral  law  and  moral  action,  which  are  always 
relational  to  others,  to  God,  or  to  celf  objectized.  Wrong  is  the 
antithesis  of  right,  and  there  is  an  idea  of  wrong  equally  as  of  right, 


28  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

and  equally  one  of  practical  reason.  But,  as  there  is  only  this  one 
law,  right  is  the  quality  or  character  of  it,  or  of  action  conformed 
to  it,  not  to  an  abstract  idea  of  right  apart  from  it,  and  wrong  or 
sin  is  the  quality  or  character  of  action  transgressing  or  violating  it, 
not  that  idea;  and  neither  that,  nor  either  of  these  can  be  a  rule  of 
action,  because  there  is  nothing  of  latv  or  obligation  in  an  idea,  as  it 
never  comes  as  an  imperative  to  action  of  any  kind,  which  is  the 
fundamental  characteristic  of  the  law  as  practical  reason  gives  it 
Hence,  the  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  are  nothing  else  than  ideas  or 
ijituitional  affirmations  of  reason  as  judicial  respecting  the  agreement 
or  disagreement  of  moral  action,  thought  of  or  done,  with  the  law, 
which,  from  the  moment  when  practical  reason  first  gives  it  in  any 
mind,  remains  in  it,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  fixed,  inde- 
flectible,  everlasting  standard  of  all  such  action.  That  is,  they  are 
simply  and  only  ideas  of  the  qualities  of  such  action,  and  always 
necessarily  of  it  as  relational  because  it  always  is  relational.  Thus 
the  whole  fabric  of  a  law  before  government,  called  the  idea  of  right, 
having  only  the  natural  consequences  of  doing  the  impossibility  of 
obeying  it  or  not,  because  it  is  no  law,  for  retributions,  collapses 
and  vanishes;  and  the  law  of  just  or  righteous  love  is  the  only  law 
of  reason  as  of  Scripture.  Not  love,  zvhich  is  its  matter,  but  justice, 
7vhich  is  its  essential  quality  or  character,  constitutes  it  the  mighty, 
eternal  bond  which  ties  the  intelligent  universe  together.  "  Were  there 
any  being,  whether  Creator  or  creature,  who  had  a  different  kind  of 
law,  prescribing  a  different  kind  of  virtue,  he  would  be  unintelligible 
to  the  others,  and  practically  unrelated  to  them."  5.  In  this  review 
of  the  quotations  from  Dr.  Bushell's  "Vicarious  Sacrifice,"  I  have 
characterized  the  law  as  relational  because  he  did.  But  this  is  a 
defective  designation  of  its  real  character,  since  a  connection  of  any 
kind,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  is  a  relation.  Its  only  proper  desig- 
nation is,  that  it  is  social,  because  its  justice,  and,  by  it,  its  matter 
of  moral  love  are  social;  so  that,  by  its  intrinsic  nature,  as  it  is  in 
and  from  the  practical  reason  of  all  moral  beings,  they  are  naturally 
set  in  a  universal  society  with  God  and  each  other,  to  which  they 
are  everlastingly  bound  and  responsible,  and  from  which,  though 
they  should  take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and  fly  farther  than 
comet  ever  flew,  even  beyond  "the  flaming  walls  of  the  universe," 
they  can  never  be  released  as  long  as  they  think  of  God  or  other 
moral  natures. 


THE  LA  VV  NOT  AM  IDEA  OF  ANY  KIND.  29 

§  18.    THE  LAW  NOT  AN  IDEA  OF  ANY  KIND,  AND  DISTINCT  FROM  THOSE 
CONNECTED  WITH  IT. 

Whatever  men  may  hold  respecting  the  idea  of  right,  it  is  certain 
that  the  law  is  not  an  idea  in  any  applicable  sense  of  that  manifoldly 
ambiguous  term,  from  the  Plantonic  to  the  last,*  but  is  an  absolutely 
unique  and  mateless  thing  among  all  the  phenomena  of  mind,  being 
neither  an  idea  nor  an  intuition,  although  both  ideas  and  intuitions 
are  connected  with  it.  It  is  law  in  the  true  sense  of  an  authoritative 
rule  for  moral  action;  the  law  of  God  in  each  moral  agent  alike, 
given  in  and  through  his  moral  reason  as  legislative;  the  only  real 
moral  law  in  the  universe;  the  sole  radical  rule  of  all  right  or 
straigiU  moral  action  in  and  by  any  moral  agent  in  any  place,  world, 
or  age.  Reason,  as  speculative,  gives  ideas  or  intuitions  not  con- 
nected with  the  law;  as  practical  or  moral,  the  moral  law;  and  this 
law  is  as  authentic,  necessary,  absolute,  and  self-certified  as  those 
ideas  or  intuitions,  having  its  ground  and  source  in  the  nature  of  the 
immortal  spirit.  Besides  the  idea  of  its  essential  quality  of  justice, 
there  are  others  and  intuitions  which,  like  satellites,  attend  both  it 
and  the  action  it  enjoins  or  forbids.  We  have  indicated  some  of  the 
intuitions  in  the  postulates  stated,f  and  need  not  specify  more.  To 
inventory  them  all  is  probably  beyond  created  power;  but  the  rad- 
ical distinction  between  all  ideas  and  intuitions  and  the  law  is,  that 
none  of  them  comes  as  it  does,  as  an  imperative  or  mandate  in  its 
subject  to  act  thus  and  not  otherwise,  as  having  a  subject  and  an 
object,  a  matter  and  an  end,  and  the  connected  intuitional  affirma- 
tions of  obligations,  debts,  dues,  deserts,  good  and  ill,  and  retri- 
butions of  reward  for  obedience  and  punishment  for  disobedience. 

§   19.    CONFIRMATIONS    THAT    JUSTICE    IS  AN   ESSENTIONAL    QUALITY  OF 

THE    LAW. 

There  are  other  confirmations  of  the  truth  that  justice  is  not  a 
matter  distinct  from  the  law,  but  an  essential  quality  of  it,  among 
which  are  the  following: — If  it  is  not  of,  but  distinct  from  it,  then 
ethical  justice  is  not  required  by  the  law  and  can  be  no  part  or 
quality  of  obedience  to  it,  as  obedience  can  include  nothing  not 
required  by  it,  and  consequently  doing  injustice  cannot  be  sin. 
What  meaning  would  there  be  in  calling  the  law  the  law  of  right? 
Even  the  love  to  God  and  others  enjoined  by  it  could  not  be  owed 
nor  due  to  them,  because  they  could  have  no  right  or  claim  to  it,  so 

(*)  See  Philosophy  of  Sir  William  Hamilton.  Note  on  Ideas,  pp.  200-203. 
(\\  S  12. 


30  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

that,  if  any  one  should  withhold  it,  or  act  any  selfishness  or  crime 
against  Him  or  them,  neither  He  nor  they  could  charge  him  with 
any  injustice  or  wrong  to  them.  If  there  could,  (as  there  certainly 
could  not),  be  an. obligation  on  each  to  love  others,  it  could  concern 
only  himself  and  have  no  social  character,  and  would  be  really  non- 
moral.  Nor  could  God  have  a  right  to  institute  a  government 
requiring  justice  and  forbidding  injustice;  for  He  cannot,  by  mere 
will  and  institution,  make  any  action  either  just  or  unjust,  right  or 
wrong,  obligatory  or  not,  if  not  so  by  the  law  itself  as  it  applies  to 
moral  agents  in  their  relations  to  Him  and  each  other.  He  can 
neither  make  iK)r  unmake  justice  or  injustice  by  will  or  at  all,  but 
can  only  make  moral  natures,  having  moral  reason  with  its  imj^era- 
tive  or  mandate  to  render  to  each  other  the  moral  love  or  matter  of 
the  law  which  is  ethical  justice.  Having  made  such  natures,  He 
cannot,  by  will  or  institution,  violate  them  and  treat  them  arbitrarily 
and  capriciously.  Hence,  to  deny  that  justice  is  in,  or  a  quality  of, 
the  law  and  moral  nature  which  gives  it,  is  to  deny  that  it  is  in 
God's  government,  and  to  make  it  an  arbitrary  imposition  in  any 
government.  Divine  or  human.  But  there  can  be  none  without  it; 
and  it  is  no  creation  of  Divine  will  or  institution  at  all,  as  Cud- 
worth*  and  many  others  have  demonstrated,  and  as  Conscience 
universally  attests.  For,  being  in  God's  mind,  it  is  as  uncreated, 
eternal,  and  immutable  as  His  mind;  being  in  the  law  as  it  is  in  all 
rational  minds,  it  is  as  immortal  and  unchangeable  as  they  are; 
and,  being  thus  grounded  in  universal  moral  nature,  it  makes  the 
lg,w  the  eternal  basis  of  order  and  society  in  all  worlds,  the  consti- 
tution of  a  universal  moral  system.  It  is  not  the  love  enjoined  by 
the  law,  but  its  quality  of  justice,  by  which  it  binds  all  to  render  that 
love  to  God  and  each  other,  as  their  due  by  natural  right,  unless 
forfeited,  and  by  moral  also,  if  they  are  obedient,  which  is  the  uni- 
versal, everlasting  vinculum  that  binds  and  clamps  all  together.  To 
the  question  why  each  ought  to  exercise  this  moral  love  towards  all 
others,  it  is  not  the  whole  answer  to  say,  because  it  is  enjoined  as 
the  matter  of  the  law;  nor  that  he  was  constituted  to  exercise  it,  and 
that  it  alone  accords  with  his  nature  and  secures  his  own  self- 
approval  and  happiness;  nor  that  all  others,  who  know  that  he  does, 
will  approve  him  and  receive  benefit  from  him.  Beyond  all  this, 
the  answer  includes  that,  by  the  common  nature,  the  objects  of  the 
love  required  have  a  natural  rigid  to  it,  so  that  it  is  due  to  them,  and 

(*)  See  Treatise  concerning  Eternal  and  Immutable  Morality,  bound  with  his 
Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe,  Vol.  II.,  p.  367  to  end. 


ESTIMATE  MADE  ON  ETHICAL  JUSTICE.  31 

rendering  it  to  them  is  simply  doing  them  ethical  justice.  It  is 
therefore  justice  in  the  law,  and  not  the  love  it  requires,  that  con- 
stitutes its  "relational"  or  social  character.  As  this  natural  right 
to  others'  love  is  universal,  except  as  any  may  have  forfeited  it  by 
sin,  the  justice  of  the  law  binds  and  holds  each  to  render  the  love  to 
all  as  their  due,  and  so  as  ethical  justice. 

§  20.    THE    ESTIMATE   PLACED   BY    MANKIND    UNIVERSALLY  ON   ETHICAL 

JUSTICE. 

That  justice  is  thus  essentially  in  the  law  is  demonstrated  by 
the  transcendent  estimate  which  mankind  universally,  by  force  of 
their  moral  nature,  place  upon  it.     Although  void  of  the  love  for 
God  and  each  other  required  by  the  law,   they  still,  with  utmost 
tenacity,  claim  and  demand  it  as  due,  as  that  to  which  they  have  an 
absolute  right,  as  the  matter  oi  justice  from  each  other.    Justice, 
justice  is  the  universal  cry.     All  assert,  eulogize,  vociferate  it,  and 
denounce,  deprecate  and  rage  against  injustice.     They  spend  treas- 
ures, contend,  war,  die  for  it,  as  the  one  thing  of  supreme  value,  the 
consummate,   all-binding  tie,  by  which  all  order  is  conserved,  all 
human  good  shielded,  fortified  and  secured,  the  very  basis  of  all 
worth  living  for.     The  more  they  defy  and  outrage  the  imperative 
of  the  law  in  them  to  render  moral  love  to  each  other,  they  seem  so 
much  the  more  to  demand  it  as  their  supreme  due  from  each  other 
by  natural  right.     They  thus  insist  on  justice,  severed  from  love,  till 
it  ceases  to  be  the  Divine  bond  which  ties  each  to  render  love  to  all, 
and  becomes  the  perverted  excuse  for  and  cause  of  more  intense 
selfishness — wild,  exacting,  exorbitant,  inexorable — the  sunimiim  jus 
which  is  the  summa  injuria.     More  than  any  other  cause,  this  love- 
less demand  for  justice  impels  families,  neighbors,  societies,  com- 
munities, states  and  nations  into  hostile  parties  with  relentless  hates 
and  conflicts.     Possessing  nations  like  a  demoniac  frenzy,  it  precip- 
itates them  into  intestine  convulsions,  wars,  and  revolutions,  or  into 
struggles  with  each   other,  carried  on  in  either  case  with  all  the 
horrors  of  battles,  ravages,  and  enormous  destructions,  till  the  earth 
reeks  with  human  gore,  is  drenched  with  tears,  and  is  blighted  with 
devastations,  the  air  is  filled  with  sighs,  groans,  and  lamentations, 
and  the  noise  and  rage,  commingled  with  prayers  and  more  num- 
erous curses,  rising  from  camps,  marches,  battlefields,  and  involved 
populations,  swell  up  to  heaven.     Such  is  the  appalling  power  in 
human  souls  of  the  demand  for  justice  when  the  love  that  meets  it 
is  not  paid — a  demand  which  never  dies  nor  sleeps,  but,  immortal 


32 


THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 


as  they,  lives  on  ever  active  and  potent  to  work  blight  and  ruin  in 
and  around  them,  unless  they  become  restored  to  love  while  they 
may. 

Proofs  are  endless  of  the  measureless  importance  mankind 
ascribe  to  justice,  and  of  its  power  over  them.  It  is  their  natural 
conviction  that  Providence  ever  sides  with  it,  and  will  not  fail  to 
give  it  triumphant  vindication  and  success — in  the  future  world 
certainly,  if  not  in  this.  The  saying  of  Napoleon,  that  "God  is 
always  on  the  side  of  the  strongest  battalions,"  has  shocked  the 
world  from  the  day  he  spoke  it  as  v/ell  nigh  blasphemous,  and  as 
destructive  of  all  hope  of  redress  for  the  wrongs  and  outrages 
inflic-ted  by  and  on  such  multitudes  of  our  race.  This  hope  is  the 
last  support  and  solace  of  all  such  sufferers  who  believe  in  a  right- 
eous God.  But,  in  addition  to  these,  why  do  the  leaders  of  nations, 
or  of  parties  in  civil  strife,  when  about  to  plunge  into  war,  always 
endeavor  to  show  that  justice  is  on  their  side?  Why  do  they  seek 
to  justify  their  resort  to  arms,  and  declare  their  expectation  of  suc- 
cess, on  this  ground?  Why  do  they  thus  turn  mankind  into  a  court 
to  judge  their  cause,  and  plead  it  before  them?  Why  do  they  appeal 
to  God  and  supplicate  His  aid  on  the  ground  that  their  cause  is 
just?  Why,  if  victorious,  do  they  ascribe  the  victory  to  His  helping 
intervention  because  justice  is  on  their  side,  and  throng  His  tem- 
ples with  thanksgivings  and  praises  for  it?  What  nation,  party,  or 
person  would  dare  to  say  or  think  that  God  would  give  triumph  to 
or  aid  the  side  of  injustice,  even  though  believing  that,  for  His  own 
wise  ends,  He  might  permit  temporary  success  to  attend  it?  Why 
do  historians  commonly  endeavor,  in  setting  forth  the  causes  of  wars 
and  revolutions,  to  show  on  which  side  justice  stood,  and  how  it 
was  vindicated  or  crushed?  Why  have  the  great  poets  of  the  world, 
in  their  epics,  tragedies,  odes,  and  peans,  always  founded  their  rep- 
resentations on  the  ground  of  justice,  and  depicted  successes  and 
failures  as  determined  by  its  principle  and  power,  supported  by 
the  hand  of  Omnipotence  working  with  and  for  it?  Could  Dante 
or  Milton  have  written  their  immortal  poems  on  any  other  basis? 
and  could  these  poems  have  had  their  stupendous  sublimity,  grandeur 
and  power  over  generations  of  readers  with  any  other?  Could  the 
the  great  tragedies  of  Shakspeare  so  thrill  and  master  human  souls, 
if  constructed  on  any  other?  The  same  principle  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  many  of  the  greatest  works  of  fiction.  How  are  readers  of  any 
work  pained  to  distress  or  anguish,  if  they  find  in  it  that  the  actors 
of  great  wrongs  and  criaies  against  others,  especially  if  virtuous  or 


ESTIMATE  MADE  ON  ETHICAL  JUSTICE.  33 

innocent,  have  escaped  retribution  and  prospered  by  their  villainy, 
while  their  victims  have  either  died  by  it,  or  lived  on  for  a  time  in 
wretchedness  and  desolation!  What  satisfaction,  even  joy,  do  readers 
receive  from  the  record  or  representation  of  swift  and  condign  pun- 
ishment upon  the  actors  of  crimes  as  vindication  at  least  of  the 
wronged,  if  no  other  restoration  is  made!  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
wronged  go  unvindicated  and  their  injurers  or  murderers  unpunished 
by  men  in  this  world,  to  whom,  unperverted  by  some  theory  at  war 
with  moral  nature,  moral  law,  and  the  voices  of  all  ages  and  nations, 
is  it  not  profoundly  gratifying  to  believe  that  the  balance  will  be 
evened  in  the  world  to  come?  What  but  this  fundamental  matter  of 
justice  was  the  basis  and  burden  of  the  predictions  of  the  old  prophets 
in  proclaiming  such  terrible  and  often  exterminating  dooms  on  their 
own  people  and  others  around?  And  how  appallingly  have  they  been 
fulfilled!  The  threatening  predictions  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles  all 
rest  on  the  same  eternal  basis,  and  have  been,  and  are  being,  fulfilled 
to  the  very  letter.  In  view  of  all  such  facts,  how  can  we  fail  to  recog- 
nize the  certainty  that  justice  belongs  to  the  very  essence  of  all  moral 
natures,  and  can  no  more  be  rationally  denied  and  discarded  than 
those  natures  themselves?  It  is  because  of  its  manifest  power  and 
consequent  high  estimation  in  all  men,  that  it  was  the  tenet  and  teach- 
ing of  the  philosophers  of  Greece,  followed  by  those  of  Rome,  who 
recognized  virtue  at  all,  that  justice  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  all 
^^irtue,  although  they  held  and  taught  that  it  involves  the  duty  of  lov- 
ing all  mankind. 

The  relation  of  justice  to  violators  of  the  law  will  be  considered 
in  the  progress  of  this  work. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Distinction  between  the  natural  and  tlie  retributive  consegtieneci 
of  obedience  and  of  disobedience,  and  what  the  real  retributive  conse- 
quences are,  with  special  proofs  and  several  implications  of  all  shown 
in  Chapter  I.  and  in  this. 

§  21.    THE  NATURAL  CONSEQUENCES   OF   OBEDIENCE  AND   DISOBEDIENCE. 

Since  the  law  is  in  and  from  the  nature  of  moral  beings,  obedi- 
ence to  it  is  action  according  to,  and  disobedience  is  action  against, 
their  nature;  and  each  infallibly  produces  certain  natural  cotiseguences 
Obedience,  unmarred  by  fall  or  flaw,  must  preserve  perfect  order  and 
harmony  between  all  the  mental  faculties — the  will  being  yielded  in 
pure  moral  freedom  to  reason's  rule  and  approved  by  conscience; 
while  easily  controlling  all  the  desires  of  the  sensibility.  Inward 
disorders,  perturbations,  agitations,  self-condemnations,  evil  passion, 
uncontrolled  desires  or  appetites,  guilty  fears,  and  all  kindred  exper- 
iences are  unknown  by  a  mind  untouched  by  disobedience.  It  is  a 
spiritual  Paradise,  whose  walls  inclose  all  personal  good  and  debar 
all  personal  evil.  No  bad  habit  of  will,  intellect,  or  sensibility  is 
formed  in  it;  but  all  good  ones  are,  and  are  constantly  strengthened 
towards  complete  confirmation.  Its  natural  affections  and  sympathies 
are  all  kept  pure  and  increasingly  enriched  and  sublimated.  Con- 
science, along  with  its  approval  and  plaudit,  is  ever  assuring  it  oi 
Divine  rewards  and  cherishing,  thus  giving  it  a  consciousness  of  dig- 
nity, of  deserving  the  complacency  of  God  and  all  good  beings,  and 
of  sacred  and  blissful  fellowship  with  them,  and  is  itself  preserved 
quick  and  efficient  to  sit  central  in  the  mind  as  guardian  of  its  recti- 
tude. The  intelligence  is  kept  open  to  all  holy  truth  and  light,  as  a 
pure  diamond  is  to  the  radiance  of  the  sun,  and  possesses  all  vigor, 
clearness,  and  promptness  to  percieve,  think,  remember,  imagine, 
reason,  and  know  all  accessible  sacred  truths  and  facts,  with  exemp- 
tion from  all  the  deceptions,  delusions,  and  countless  errors  induced 
by  a  selfish  will.     Thus  the  obedience  of  all  minds  which  have  never 


THE  NA  TURAL  CONSEQUENCES.  35 

sinned  must  make  their  existence  a  constant  deliglit,  and  their  belier 
in  immortality  a  perpetual  joy;  and  must  in  every  way  secure  perfect 
personal  well-being  and  blessedness,  besides  urging  to  all  the  good 
done  to  others,  and  all  the  glory  to  God  wrought  by  them.  In  minds 
in  sin,  such  consequences  of  their  action  are  never  found,  nor  can  be. 
In  renovated  human  minds,  they  are  only  meagerly  experienced  in 
this  life,  and  are  often  intermixed  with  their  opposites,  induced  by 
past  or  current  sins,  though  sufficiently  to  demonstrate  what  they 
must  be  in  perfect  beings. 

Disobedience,  on  the  contrary,  sets  all  the  mental  faculties  at 
odds,,  and  causes  internal  disorders,  commotions  and  conflicts,  which 
often  jar  and  convulse  the  whole  nature.  Omniscience  alone  could 
furnish  a  complete  catalogue  of  its  baneful  results  in  a  single  mind. 
What,  then,  must  the  sum  and  variety  of  them  be  in  all  fallen  minds? 
No  creature  can  ever  know  them  all;  for  even  the  final  judgment  can 
only  disclose  them  in  part,  and  eternity  will  be  developing  and  dis- 
closing them  endlessly.  But,  as  experienced  and  manifested  in  time, 
they  and  their  propagations  are  a  chief  'constituent  of  all  history, 
poetry,  and  literature,  except  the  purely  scientific,  philosophic,  and 
didactic,  and  of  the  conversation  of  mankind;  and  they  constitute 
the  staple  elements  and  exhibitions  of  the  stupendous  drama  ever 
acted  by  the  successive  generations  on  the  theater  of  the  world.  But 
even  of  those  of  them  patent  to  all  we  can  here  indicate  only  the 
following: — 

Moral  Reason  is  deposed  from  sovereignty,  and  the  Sensibility  of 
the  mind  enthroned  in  its  stead  with  its  desires  substituted  for  law. 
The  Will,  the  author  of  this  revolution,  has  lost  power  to  resume 
right  action,  and  has  sunk  into  abject  vassalage  to  the  false  ruler  it 
has  raised  to  the  throne.  This  vassalage  is  caused,  perpetuated,  and 
constantly  increased  by  the  law  of  Habit,  by  which  all  the  action  of 
the  mental  faculties  reacts  upon  them  and  effects  in  them  di  pr oneness 
or  hoit  to  repeat  or  continue  it.  Repetition  or  continuance  con- 
stantly adds  to  this  proneness  or  bent,  both  impelling  and  holding 
the  actor  increasingly  to  comply  with  it;  and,  if  he  does,  the  habit 
sooner  or  later  acquires  all  the  force  of  nature,  and  is  fittingly  called 
a  second  nature.  This  law  is  one  of  the  most  important,  as  well  as 
most  wonderful,  of  the  qualities  of  moral  natures.  It  is  the  basis  of 
all  training,  education,  culture,  character,  and  every  kind  of  skill.  It 
specially  acts  on  the  Will  in  respect  to  its  radical  moral  or  religious 
choice,  rapidly  confirming  it,  if  good,  but  at  once  settittg  it,  if  evil,  so 
that  Divine  influence  alone  avails  in  any  case  to  effect  a  change  from 


36  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

an  evil  choice  to  a  good  one;  and,  if  this  does  not  avail  within  a 
limited  time,  as  far  as  mankind  at  least  are  concerned,  the  evil  one 
is  fixed  forever  beyond  change.  As  this  radical  wrong  choice  deter- 
mines the  moral  quality  of  all  actions  executive  of  it,  sways  the 
thinking,  reasoning,  imagining,  and  viewing  of  the  Intelligence  in 
relation  to  its  end,  and  occasions  and  stimulates  the  corresponding 
feelings  and  desires  of  the  Sensibility,  so  the  habit  of  it,  by  strength- 
ening it,  serves  to  induce  the  special  habits  of  all  these  kinds  of 
resultant  action.  Each  of  these  special  habits,  constantly  strengthen- 
ing, binds  the  faculty  it  is  in  to  the  specific  action  of  which  it  is  the 
habit.  They  all  co-operate  to  render  the  radical  choice  and  the  habit 
of  it  more  and  more  unyielding,  so  that  it  cannot  be  very  long  before 
these  become  fully  confirmed  and  as  invincible  as  fate.  While  a 
wrong  radical  choice  with  the  habit  of  it  is  continued  by  any  mind, 
a  right  one  with  -the  habit  of  it  and  the  resultant  subordinate  habits 
is  prevented;  and  thus  disobedience  to  the  law  and  all  the  anarchy 
and  convulsion  it  produces,  having  begun  in  a  mind,  must,  unless 
seasonably  arrested  by  the  gracious  power  of  God,  infallibly  go  on 
from  bad  to  worse  forever.  The  way  of  sin  is  a  down  grade  ever 
growing  increasingly  declined  till  comparatively  soon  it  becomes 
utterly  precipitous.  So  fearful  is  the  power  of  the  law  of  habit  in 
disobedient  minds!  What  prospect  does  it  furnish  or- permit  of  a  con- 
tinuance of  probation  after  this  life,  and  of  the  repentance  and  restor- 
ation of  sinners  after  death? 

But  there  are  other  natural  consequences  of  disobedience  which 
aggravate  the  whole  condition  of  its  actors,  among  which  are  the 
following: — It  obscures  the  light  and  sight  of  moral  reason,  perverts 
the  moral  judgment,  and  renders  the  understanding  gross  and  dull 
respecting  spiritual  and  moral  truth  and  realities.  It  renders  "the 
desires  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  mind"  abnormal  and  imperious,  and 
generates  and  fosters  evil  passions,  those  combinations  of  inflamed 
desires  and  cherishing  will,  till  they  become  of  gigantic  power,  and 
impel  to  all  the  enormities  of  vice,  injustice,  and  crime  which  darken 
the  world.  The  sensibility  of  conscience  is  blunted  and  often  well 
nigh  paralyzed;  and  yet  a  sense  of  guilt  and  of  desert  of  punishment 
pervades  the  mind,  and  often  fills  it  with  remorse,  regret,  fearful  fore- 
bodings, shrinking  shame,  dread  of  God,  and  not  seldom  with  terror 
and  torture.  Hence  spring  a  dislike  of  God  and  to  retain  Him  in 
knowledge,  aversion  to  obliging,  condemning,  or  alarming  truth  and 
its  asserters,  and  a  strong  attraction  to  opposing  errors.  All  true 
spiritual  and  moral  relations  to  God  and  other  moral  natures,  which 


THE  NATURAL  CONSEQUENCES.  37 

depend  on  rectitude,  are  prevented;  all  holy  aims  and  aspirations  are 
discarded;  those  aims  whose  ends  are  in  time  only,  or  which  are 
intrinsically  insignificant,  or  base,  or,  vicious  are  adopted;  and  the 
results  are  conscious  or  unconscious  unworthiness  of  the  complacency 
of  God  and  all  good  beings,  dissatisfaction,  discontent,  moral  debase- 
ment, often  vices  and  crimes,  not  seldom  the  riot  of  men  in  despair. 
If  the  guilty  mind  tenants  a  body,  it  renders  that  more  tempting  and 
fills  it  with  disorder,  disease,  pain,  and  seeds  of  death.  Thus  the 
entire  being  becomes  perverted,  thrown  into  discord,  robbed  of  hap- 
piness, and  often  racked  and  tormented  to  utter  misery  and  loathing 
of  existence. 

Beyond  all  such  personal  results,  an  evil  influence  is  shed,  often 
most  damagingly  on  nearest  and  dearest  relatives,  but  also  on  others, 
it  may  be  on  millions  and  successive  generations,  luring  or  impelling 
them  to  downward  ways,  or  worst  depravities,  or  even  appalling 
crimes  and  courses — often  into  utter  apostacy  from  God  and  His 
truth.  How  often,  by  the  bad  influence  of  one,  is  another,  a  whole 
family,  a  cluster  of  families,  a  whole  community,  a  great  population, 
numbers  beyond  count,  plunged  into  incalculable  evil  in  this  world 
and  ruin  in  that  which  is  to  come!  While  many  of  these  conse- 
quences, both  personal  and  social,  are  peculiar  to  mankind,  and  to 
them  in  this  life,  they  are  mainly  experienced  by  all  sinners  in  the 
universe.  Those  of  them  peculiar  to  the  spiritual  nature  of  mankind 
in  this  life  plainly  grow  worse  and  worse  in  all  who  persist  in  sin, 
becoming  in  multitudes  confirmed  conditions  of  existence,  and  mak- 
ing it  certain  that,  when  probation  ends,  they  will  be  such  conditions 
in  all,  and  will,  if  possible,  go  on  growing  worse  and  worse  forever. 
How  vast  the  difference  between  a  universe  of  moral  beings,  all 
standing  in  perfect  conformity  to  the  law  and  in  full  experience  of  the 
natural  consequences  of  obedience,  and  the  actual  one,  of  which 
such  incalculable  numbers  fall  into  sin,  and  are  blighted  and  cursed 
by  its  whole  dire  progeny  of  natural  consequences!  God  alone  can 
see  and  measure  all  the  stupendous  contrast. 

§  22.    WHY    WE    CALL    THESE    CONSEQUENCES    NATURAL. 

We  call  these  consequences  iiatural,  because  they  are  not  pro- 
duced by  any  agency  outside  of  moral  natures  themselves,  but  by 
these  as  affected  by  each  kind  of  their  action.  Since  obeying  is  act- 
ing according  to  their  true  nature,  and  so  maintains  its  integrity  and 
harmony  and  fulfills  its  ends,  how  could  any  other  than  all  happy 
consequences  result?  and  since  disobeying  is  acting  against  that  nature, 


38  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

and  so  disrupting  its  integrity  and  harmony  and  defeating  its  ends, 
how  could  any  other  than  unhappy  cotisequences  result?  Can  a  nature 
jar  and  grate,  when  acting  as  it  was  constituted  to  act?  or  not  do  so, 
when  acting  as  it  was  not  constituted  to  act,  thus  violating  itself?  We 
say  reverently,  that  even  God  could  not  prevent  these  consequences 
of  each  kind  of  action,  except  by  annihilating  moral  natures;  and 
that,  provided  they  could  still  exist,  if  He  were  annihilated  or  utterly 
withdrawn  from  them,  these  would  be,  in  kind,  if  not  in  degree,  pre- 
cisely what  they  universally  have  been  and  are.  It  is  therefore  only 
misleading  and  preventive  of  a  right  understanding  of  any  questions 
involving  these  consequences,  to  call  the  qualities  of  moral  natures 
from  which  they  spring  '■^retributive  causes  set  in  these  natures"  as  if 
these  qualities  did  not  necessarily  belong  to  such  natures  so  intrin- 
sically that,  without  them,  they  could  not  be  such.  We  only  know 
what  a  moral  nature  is  from  what  we  know  of  our  own;  and  we  thus 
know  that  reason,  conscience,  will,  and  sensibility  are  essential  attri- 
butes of  it,  and  so  involved  in  moral  action  that  the  natural  conse- 
quences indicated  necessarily  result  from  each  kind  of  it.  These, 
therefore,  are  simply  natural  or  constitutional;  and  it  is  only  in  a 
figurative  way,  fit  for  poetry,  romance,  and  loose  rhetoric,  but  not  for 
science  or  exact  statement  of  truth,  that  they  can  be  called  retribtctive, 
or  that  the  natural  qualities  from  which  they  spring  can  be  called 
retributive  causes.  All  that  can  warrantably  and  truly  be  said  of  these 
consequences  is,  that,  being  purely  natural,  they  indicate  and  fore- 
shadow those  which  are  properly  retributive,  and  are  in  some  respects 
analogous  to  them;  and  also  that  the  existence  of  moral  natures 
necessarily  constitutes  a  moral  system.  Additional  reasons  why  these 
consequences  of  each  kind  of  action  cannot  be  properly  retributive, 
or  more  than  we  have  stated,  will  appear  as  we  proceed.* 

§  23.    THE  RETRIBUTIVE    CONSEQUENCES    OF   OBEDIENCE    AND    SIN 

What  are  these?  The  answer  is  given  by  Conscience  in  all  human 
consciousness.  While  approving  the  well-doer  or  condemning  the  ill- 
doer,  this  wonderous  faculty  ever  points  to  God,  however  recognized, 

(*)  See,  for  the  notion  that  all  the  penalty  or  retribution  of  sin  is  its  natural 
consequences  only,  and  springs  entirely  from  retributive  causes,  forces,  or  laws,  or 
a  retributive  principle,  of  nature,  incorporated  into  it  by  the  Creator,  Bushnell's 
Vacarious  Sacrifice,  1866,  pp.  274,  276,  2S2,  284,  285,  287,  297,  326,  328,  329,  345, 
353i  354'  359'  S^O;  361.  See  also,  and  reconcile  with  these  places,  who  can,  pp. 
238,  252.  The  latter  positions  are  certainly  true;  the  preceding  as  certainly  false 
in  any  proper  sense  of  the  terms,  retributive,  penal,  retribution.  See  also  Young's 
"Life  and  Light  of  Men,"  1866,  pp.  84,  85-9S,  111-120,  130-133,  140,  141,  and 
often  in  other  pages.  The  miscalled  "Moral  View  of  the  Atonement"  demands 
this  theory,  and  excludes  positive  retributions. 


CONSEQUENCES  OF  OBEDIENCE  AND  SIN.  39 

and,  with  judicial  sentence,  declares  to  the  former  that  He  also 
approves  and  will  reward  him  according  to  his  good  desert,  and  to 
the  latter  that  He  also  condemns  and  will  punish  him  according  to 
his  ill-desert;  and  it  is  from  this  action  of  this  faculty  in  approving 
or  condemning,  and  in  attesting  that  God  does  the  same  and  will 
reward  or  punish,  attending  the  moral  action  of  mankind  from  its 
outset,  that  they  have  their  ideas  of  good-desert  and  ill-desert,  and  of 
Divine  retributions.  So  far  are  even  those  natural  consequences  of 
each  kind  of  moral  action,  which  consist  in  or  are  produced  by  this 
action  of  conscience,  such  as  self-approval,  peace  and  joy,  or  self- 
condemnation,  guilty  fear  and  remorse,  from  being  those  presignified 
by  it,  or  even  among  them,  that  they  are  merely  effects  produced  by 
it  in  the  spiritual  nature.  It  would  be  no  more  absurd  to  mistake  the 
effects  produced  in  persons  before  a  human  court  by  the  acquitting  or 
condemning  verdict  of  the  jury  and  the  decision  of  the  judge  for  that 
verdict  and  decision,  and  the  reward  or  punishment  announced  in  the 
decision,  than  to  mistake  the  effects  produced  in  the  spiritual  nature 
by  the  approving  or  condemning  verdict  and  decision  of  conscience 
for  these  and  the  positive  retributions  presignified  in  the  decision  to 
come  from  the  hand  of  God.  The  mistake  is  a  confusion  of  cause 
and  effect,  and  of  the  effects  of  different  causes — of  the  natural  effects 
of  each  kind  of  action,  which  conscience  never  presignifies,  and  tne 
retributive  consequences  of  each  from  the  hand  of  God  or  men,  which 
alone  it  does  presignify.  It  never  fresignifies  any  of  its  own  effects, 
happy  or  unhappy,  but  alivays  positive,  social  Divijie  rewards  or  punish- 
ments. In  the  proper  sense,  t/ierefore,  retributions  are  positive  rewards 
and  punishments  administered  by  God  Himself,  and  different  from  all 
the  mere  natural  consequences  of  obedience  and  of  sin.  Among  these, 
doubtless,  are  confirmation  of  the  obedient  in  holiness  and  its  natural 
results,  and  abandonment  of  the  wicked  to  sin  and  its  natural  results, 
both  everlasting  conditions  of  existence. 

So  answers  conscience  in  all  ages  to  the  question,  what  are  real 
retributions;  and  this  answer  has  always  been  recognized  and  attested 
alike  by  Pagans  and  Mahometans,  Jews  and  Christians,  by  civilized 
and  uncivilized,  in  all  the  world.  So  pronounced  and  clear  has  it  always 
been,  that  we  may  well  wonder  that  they  should  fail  to  receive  it  as 
final;  and  more,  that,  in  defiance  of  it,  any  should  assert  the  wild  con- 
ceit, that  the  law  is  automatic,  and  universally  executes  its  retributions 
in  natural  consequences  from  the  moment  it  is  obeyed  or  disobeyed.* 
The  law  executes  nothing.     It  is  the  nature  which  gives  it  that  exe- 

(*)  See  references  to  Bushnell  and  Young  in  a  previous  note,  p.  38. 


40  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

cutes,  as  well  as  experiences  or  unconsciously  receives,  all  these 
consequences,  which  are  in  no  proper  sense  retributions  at  all.  Well, 
too,  in  view  of  what  we  have  shown,  may  it  excite  astonishment,  that, 
in  order  to  clear  the  ground  for  these  chimerical  positions,  their 
asserters  should  tell  us,  that  the  reason  why  the  doctrine  of  positive 
retributions  from  God  has  been  so  commonly  held,  not  only  by  the 
main  body  of  the  Church  from  its  beginning  with  its  shining  suc- 
cession of  the  foremost  minds  of  the  race,  but  by  the  race  generally, 
is  that  they  have  been  led  to  adopt  it  by  the  analogy  of  human  govern- 
ments! As  well  say,  that  men  have  been  led  to  adopt  the  geometrical 
doctrines  of  squares,  triangles,  circles,  and  straight  lines  by  the  anal- 
ogies of  figures  which  they  have  made  or  seen!  The  exact  reverse  is 
the  truth.  When  we  read  our  own  consciousness,  and  add  to  its 
teachings  the  common  consent  of  mankind,  which  shows  that  theirs 
is  the  same  as  ours,  and  find  both  attesting  that  the  verdicts  and 
appointments  to  Divine  retributions  by  conscience  are  as  have  been 
shown,  we  are  forced  to  adhere  to  the  tenet  of  the  race,  that  God 
will  administer  both  positive  rewards  and  positive  punishments. 
Without  them,  it  is  certain  that  there  can  be  no  real  moral  govern- 
ment in  heaven  or  on  earth,  no  moral  system,  no  harmony  with  the 
nature  of  moral  beings,  no  moral  order,  nothing  but  eternal  anarchy. 
In  adopting  them,  therefore,  in  human  governments,  legislators,  rulers, 
subjects,  all  mankind  have  only  followed  a  fundamental  demand  of 
their  moral  nature,  just  as  bees  follow  the  impulse  of  their  natural 
instinct  in  constituting  their  well-ordered  commonwealths. 

§  24.    SPECIALLY    PROVED    BY    THE    SENSE    OF    GUILT. 

This  fundamental  truth  has  impregnable  fortifications  in  »the 
action  of  every  sinner's  own  conscience,  in  the  action  of  the  con- 
sciences of  others  respecting  him,  and  in  the  rights,  dues,  interests, 
and  concerns  of  the  universal  society  constituted  by  the  common 
moral  nature  having  the  law  in  it,  which  no  theory  of  automatic  law 
or  mere  naturalism  can  ever  demolish  or  enter  to  destroy  it  and  to 
exclude  God  from  immediate  connection  with  and  government  over 
mankind. 

We  have  seen  that  the  law  is  social,  so  that  the  love  it  requires  is 
naturally  due  from  each  to  God  and  his  fellows,  except  to  such  as 
may  have  forfeited  the  right  to  it  by  sin;  so  that  rendering  it  is  simply 
paying,  and  doing  the  contrary  is  robbing  both  Him  and  them  of,  this 
radical  due.  But  equally  from  reason  and  as  certain  is  the  corre- 
lative truth,  and  every  actor  of  this  robbery  or  radical  wrong  thereby 


SPECIALLY  PROVED  BY  TLIE  SENSE  OF  GULLT.  41 

creates  another  due  from  himself  to  God  and  them,  the  due  of  penal 
suffering,  which  he  oives  as  really,  though  not  as  absolictely  during  pro- 
bation, as  he  does  that  of  moral  love.  One  of  these  impregnable  forti- 
fications is  his  sense  of  owing  this,  commonly  called  the  sense  of  guilt, 
which  is  a  sense  of  desert  of  and  liability  to  punishment  for  his  wrong- 
doing. It  is  wholly  involuntary  in  its  beginning  and  continuance, 
and  inexpugnable  by  his  will.  It  is  an  immediate  natural  consequence 
of  conscious  commission  of  wrong,  always  more  or  less  disturbing 
the  actor;  but,  if  he  has  committed  some  enormity  of  sin  or  crime, 
and  is  not  hardened  and  blinded  to  moral  stupidity,  it  distresses  and 
even  torments  him,  often  to  agony.  It  springs,  like  a  Divine  arrest 
and  judicial  sentence,  from  his  spiritual  nature,  in  which  conscience 
sits  as  the  vice-gerent  of  God.  It  consists  of  two  elements,  corres- 
ponding to  the  twofold  nature  of  conscience — one,  a  positive  intuitive 
attestation  by  moral  reason  in  conscience,  that  he  deserves  and  is 
liable  to  punishment  from  God,  and  perhaps  also  from  man;  the 
other  a  connected  agitation  of  the  sensibility  of  conscience  by  pecu- 
liar feelings  of  unworthiness,  condemnation,  and  fear  of  punishment. 
Unless  this  sensibility  has  been  indurated  by  previous  enormities  of 
sin,  these  feelings  are,  as  said  above,  always  painful,  and  not  seldom 
intolerably  tormenting,  constituting  remorse,  and  often  causing 
despair;  and,  because  sinners  are  vastly  more  conscious  of  these  feel- 
ings than  of  the  rational  attestation  with  which  they  are  inseparably 
connected,  men  have  called  them  and  it  together  the  sense  of  guilt. 

§  25.    OTHERS    COGNIZANT    OF  ANY  ONE'S    WRONG-DOING    HAVE  A  CORRE- 
LATIVE  SENSE   OF  HIS   GUILT. 

•Not  only  has  he  this  sense  of  guilt,  but  all  others  cognizant  of  his 
wrong-doing  have  a  correlative  sense  that  he  is  guilty — that  is,  that 
he  deserves  and  is  liable  to  punishment  from  God,  from  man,  or  from 
both,  and  that  his  suffering  it  is  due  to  them  for  that  doing.  As  in  him, 
so  in  them,  this  sense,  like  the  law,  is  social.  And  be  it  noted,  that 
there  is  nothing  in  or  connected  with  it  in  him,  or  in  them  respecting 
it  or  him,  which  implies  or  allows  that  the  natural  consequences  of 
his,  or  of  any  sin,  itself  included,  are  the  deserved  punishment  or  any 
part  of  it.  They  are  all  constitutionally  evolved  in  him,  while  the 
punishment  signified  by  it  as  deserved  from  and  owed  to  God  and 
others  by  him  is  a  positive  retributory  infliction  upon  him  by  God,  or 
man,  or  both.  Nor  is  this  sense  appeased  or  abated  in  him  by  any 
experience  he  may  have  of  these  consequences,  itself  included,  how- 
ever poignant  they  may  be,  although  the  more  keen  it  is,  the  more 


42  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

aggravated  some  of  them  become.  Hence,  from  the  days  of  Adam 
and  Cain  until  now,  it  has  been  the  common  endeavor  of  mankind  to 
justify  or  extenuate  their  transgressions  or  crimes  in  order  to  disprove 
or  diminish  their  ill-desert  for  them,  and  to  avert  or  mitigate  the 
punishment  for  them  from  God,  or  man,  or  both.  They  have  never 
put  forth  this  endeavor  with  the  design  to  remove  or  abate  the  natural 
consequences  of  their  sins  or  crimes;  and,  if  they  have  petitioned 
either  God  or  man  for  pardon,  it  has  7iever  been  for  exemption  from 
these  consequences,  but  always  for  release  from  the  positive  punish- 
ment deserved  from  Him  or  man.  So  strong  is  the  social  force  of 
this  sense  of  guilt,  that  very  often  in  the  course  of  the  world  persons 
have  been  impelled  by  it  to  divulge  their  hidden  crimes,  and  to  solicit, 
and  even  to  rejoice  in  receiving  from  their  fellow  men,  the  punish- 
ment assigned  for  them.  Its  power  in  them  overcomes  all  opposing 
considerations.  On  the  other  hand,  mankind  have  always  expressed 
what  their  sense  of  the  guilt  of  criminals  teaches  them,  when  con- 
templating their  endurance  of  positive  punishment,  by  saying — "They 
have  got  their  desert,  or  reward,  or  pay,  or  wages;  or  they  have  paid 
the  penalty,  or  debt,  which  they  owed,  or  which  was  due."  Thus  this 
sense  of  guilt,  or  of  desert  of  jDunishment,  both  in  the  wrong-doer  and 
in  others,  corresponds  perfectly  with  the  justice,  end,  and  whole 
social  nature  of  the  law,  and  with  the  presignifications  of  conscience 
that  Divine,  penal  retributions  will  be  inflicted  on  sinners  in  addition 
to  all  the  natural  consequences  of  sin,  unless  God  shall  rescue  them 
from  them  by  some  redemptive  measure,  adequate  to  meet  the 
demands  of  the  law  against  them. 

If  this  attestation  of  conscience  is  truth,  what  can  be  more  cer- 
tain than  that  God  will  inflict  such  retributions  upon  all  the  incor- 
rigibly wicked  for  their  sins  in  this  life?  There  is  not  a  truth  more 
firmly  set  in  nature,  nor  one  to  which  its  theoretic  deniers  give  more 
frequent  and  positive  undesigned  consent.  For  who  of  them  is  there, 
who,  if  he  receives,  or  observes,  or  learns  that  others  receive,  some 
decided  wrong,  especially  a  great  one,  does  not  have  this  sense  of  the 
guilt  of  the  perpetrator,  this  inward  verdict  and  feeling  that  he 
deserves  and  ought  to  be  correspondingly  punished?  and  who,  if  he 
sees  him  escape,  or  likely  to  escape,  punishment  from  man,  does  not 
say  with  emphasis — "Well,  God  is  just,  and  He  will  punish  him?" 
And  all  who  hear  respond,  "Amen."  Nor  do  they  ever  mean  by  this, 
that  God  will  simply  leave  him  to  the  natural  consequences  of  his 
criminality.  Are  not  this  demand  of  the  common  conscience  for 
retributive  justice,  and  this  solacing  hope  that  it  will  be  met,  as  gen- 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  PUNISHMENT. 


43 


uine  products  of  moral  nature  as  sympathetic  feeling?  Are  they  as 
likely  to  be  from  perversion  of  nature  as  it  is?  Shall  we,  by  calling 
this  common  demand  of  the  conscience  of  mankind  the  spirit  of 
revenge,  envelop  our  minds  with  a  nimbus  of  indiscriminate  sympathy 
with  tlie  guilty,  which  hides  the  radical  moral  difference  between 
ihem  and  the  upright,  between  sin  and  obedience,  between  good- 
desert  and  ill-desert,  and,  in  treatment,  puts  them  all  on  par?  The 
notion  that  God's  love  is  merely  sympathetic,  sentimental,  or  affec- 
lional  is  the  bane  alike  of  theology  and  morality — the  great  Comus  of 
our  time,  who  "hurls 

His  dazzling  spells  into  the  spongy  air, 

Of  power  to  cheat  the  eye  with  blear  illusion. 

And  give  it  false  presentments;" 

and  with  "  well-placed  words — 

Bailed  with  reasons  not  implausible, 
Winds  him  into  the  easy-hearted  man, 
And  hugs  him  into  snares." 

§  26.  THE  DEMAND  FOR  POSITIVE  PUNISHMENT  OF  WRONG-DOERS,  AND 
THE  SATISFACTION  IT  GIVES,  ADDITIONAL  PROOFS  THAT  IT  IS  THE 
ONLY  REAL  RETRIBUTION. 

Although  we  pointed  to  this  demand  and  this  satisfaction  of 
mankind  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  we  did  not  show  that  the 
demand  is  essentially  different  from  their  sense  of  ^t  guilt  of  wrong- 
doers, as  it  certainly  is;  for,  in  these,  the  sense  of  their  guilt  is  that 
of  their  deserving  and  being  liable  to  punishment  from  God,  man,  or 
both.  It  causes  and  is  constantly  attended  hy  fear  of  the  punishment; 
and  this  effect,  like  its  cause,  comes  from  conscience.  But,  in  the 
sufferers  of  wrong  and  all  others  cognizant  of  it,  while  their  sense  of 
the  guilt  of  its  doer  is,  like  his,  that  he  deserves  and  is  liable  to  pun- 
ishment from  God,  man,  or  both,  it  causes  and  is  attended  in  them 
by  a  persistent  demand  for  his  subjection  to  it;  and  they  have  satis- 
faction in  knowing  that  it  is,  or  in  expecting  that  it  will  be,  met.  This 
demand  is  wholly  involuntary,  and  purely  one  of  moral  reason  in 
conscience;  and  this  satisfaction  is  of  this  reason  and  the  sensibility 
connected  with  it  in  conscience.  In  the  disordered  condition  of 
man's  moral  nature,  this  demand  is  often  attended  by  the  passion  of 
anger,  which  may,  and  not  seldom  does,  impel  to  cruelty  and  at  times 
to  frightful  enormities;  but,  in  itself,  it  is  as  real  and  righteous  as  that 
for  ethical  justice,  and  one  of  the  chief  demands  of  archetypal  moral 
nature,  or  ot  holy  reason  in  conscience.  This  demand,  and  the  sat- 
isfaction ot  having  it  met,  are  therefore  two  additional  proofs  that 
all  wrong-doing,  all  sin,  deserves  and  will  bring  upon  its  actors  retrib- 


44  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

utive  punishment  from  God,  unless  He  rescues  them  from  it  by  a 
redemptive  measure  adequate  to  satisfy  the  demand  and  restore  them 
to  obedient  harmony  with  Himself  and  with  all  other  holy  beings. 

§  27.    WHAr    TRUE,    ACCORDINGLY,    OF    RENDERING    OR    NOT    THE    LOVE 
REQUIRED    BY  THE    LAW. 

From  all  preceding,  it  is  perfectly  manifest  that  rendering  this 
moral  love  to  God  and  all  others  is  simply /c7j'/;/^  Him  and  them 
this  due,  while  doing  the  contrary  is  robbing  Him  and  them  of  it. 
Hence,  whether  any  one  renders  or  withholds  it  is  their  supreme 
concern  and  interest,  as  rendering  it  has  the  pleasure  and  glory  of 
God  and  the  full  real  good  of  all  others  for  its  end,  its  tendencies 
being  to  promote  these  to  the  utmost  forever;  and  as  withhold- 
ing it  has  mere  self-gratification  for  its  end,  its  tendencies  being 
to  hinder  and  destroy  the  true  end  wherever  it  spreads  its  bane- 
ful contagion  and  influence  in  the  worlds.  The  tendencies  of  both 
these  kinds  of  moral  action  spring  from  the  social  nature  of  moral 
beings — from  their  amazing  susceptibility  to  be  affected  by  each 
other's  example  and  influence  by  all  they  know  of  each  other's 
character,  conduct,  experiences,  and  whole  history — from  the  law 
of  habit  and  the  natural  consequences  of  each  kind  of  action — from 
thei-r  desires  and  impulsions  urging  to  each  kind — from  their  different 
degrees  of  knowledge  or  ignorance  of  God  and  Plis  treatment  of 
the  actors  of  each  kind — and  from  all  their  relations  to  Him  and 
each  other.  How  stupendous,  then,  and  surpassing  the  compre- 
hension of  finite  minds  must  the  bearings  of  each  kind  of  action  be 
upon  the  character  and  destinies  of  moral  beings  forever  throughout 
the  universe!  How  must  each  draw  after  it  through  the  ages  a 
measureless  comet-like  train,  the  one  of  good  and  glory,  the  other 
of  evil  and  ruin!  What  a  direct  relation,  too,  must  each  of  them 
and  of  their  actors  have  to  the  honor  and  government  of  God!  He 
and  all  His  rational  creatures  being  the  objects,  and  His  pleasure 
and  glory  and  their  good  the  ^;z^  of  the  kind  of  action  enjoined  by 
the  law,  its  matter  and  end,  and  obedience  to  it  all  pertain  immedi- 
ately to  Him  and  them,  and  disobedience  to  it  is  direct  wrong  and  itijury 
to  Him  and  them;  so  that  whether  the  law  is  or  is  not  obeyed  by  even 
ONE  ?noral  agent  is  the  supreme,  universal,  and  endless  concern  and 
ifiierest  of  God  and  all  like  natures,  existing  and  to  exist  in  the  ever- 
lasting future.  How  much  more  is  it  so,  whether  it  is  or  is  not 
obeyed  by  many,  by  a  race,  by  ever-augmenting  myriads!  How 
then,  can  the  mere  natural  consequences  of  each  kind  of  action, 


LOVE  REQUIRED  BY  THE  LAW.  45 

which  are  necessarily  ^^^^x€iy  personal  in  origin  and  relation,  be  any 
expression  of  the  concern,  interest,  rights,  dues,  and  good  of  God 
and  all  others,  as  affected  by  each  one's  action?  How,  for  instance, 
do  those  of  obedience  express  the  complacency  towards  its  actor, 
the  estimation  in  which  he  is  held,  and  the  sense  of  his  good-desert, 
which  are  in  the  minds  of  God  and  all  good  beings?  and  how  do 
those  of  disobedience  express  the  displeasure  towards  its  actor,  the 
sense  of  his  ill-desert  for  the  wrong  and  injury  he  has  done  against 
God  and  all  moral  beings,  and  the  proper  regard  for  the  law  and 
the  good  obedience  to  it  secures,  which  He  and  they  must  have? 
They  do  not  express  any  of  these,  because  neither  are  the  former 
class  conferred,  nor  the  latter  inflicted  by  God  for  Himself  and  all 
others,  but  both  classes  of  them  are  produced  wholly  by  the  nature 
of  the  actors,  so  that  they  merely  show  the  effects  of  each  kind  of 
action  in  the  nature  of  each  actor,  and  are  purely  personal.  If, 
therefore,  God,  as  Ruler  of  the  whole  moral  society,  does  not 
administer  real  retributions  of  reward  and  punishment  beyond 
these,  there  are  none  consistent  with  the  m-atter  and  end  of  the  law 
and  expressive  of  His  and  their  interest  and  concern  respecting 
either  these  or  obedience  to  it  as  due  to,  and  disobedience  to  it  as 
wrong  and  injury  against  Him  and  them.  As  the  social  nature  of 
moral  beings  and  of  the  law  in  and  from  it  has  thus  no  recognition 
by  God  in  His  dealings  with  them,  He  has  no  moral  government 
nor  moral  system,  and  universal  conscience  is  palpably  a  false  wit- 
ness concerning  Him.  This  nature  of  them  and  of  the  law,  equally 
with  the  presignifications  of  conscience,  demands  social  retributions 
from  God — that  is,  positive  rewards  for  obedience  and  positive 
punishments  tor  disobedience.  These  the  natural  consequences  of 
each  cannot  be,  because  they  are  not  social,  but  merely  personal; 
and  because  they  are  not  administered  by  God,  as  demanded  by  the 
interest,  concern,  claims,  and  rights  of  Himself  and  all  in  the  moral 
society  and  system  by  reason  of  their  nature,  the  law  in  and  from 
it,  and  all  their  inter-relationship,  but  are  products  of  their  own 
constitutions,  and  are  substantially  what  they  would  be  if  there 
were  no  God,  or  if,  like  the  lazy  god  of  Epicurus,  He  neither  dis- 
turbs nor  is  disburbed  by  them,  provided  only  that  they  could 
continue  to  exist ! 

Thus  this  notion  of  retributions,  like  that  of  the  materialists,  that 
the  laws  of  nature  are  a  self-operating  reticulation  of  all-controlling 
physical  forces  so  fateful  that  even  God,  if  there  is  one,  cannot  inter- 
fere with  them  for  any  purpose,  virtually  "untenants  creation  of  its 


46  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

God"  by  excluding  Him  from  administering  all  real  governmental 
functions  over  His  intelligent  creatures — even  those  of  a  Father! 

§  28.    THE    END  OF   JUSTICE    THAT  OF   MORAL    LOVE,    AND    RETRIBUTIVE 
PUNISHMENT  EQUALLY  AS   REWARD  DEMANDED  BY  CONSCIENCE. 

The  end  of  the  law,  of  its  justice  equally  as  of  its  matter  of 
moral  love,  is  the  complete,  everlasting  good  of  moral  beings  /// 
their  Divinely  constituted  society.  The  good  of  each  created  one 
in  it  is  balanced  by  that  of  every  other  one,  and  that  of  them  all  is 
infinitely  exceeded  by  that  of  God,  its  Head.  As  this  transcendent 
good  of  God  and  this  balanced  good  of  all  others  is  the  one  aggre- 
gate end  of  the  love  enjoined  by  the  law  upon  each  as  owed  by  him 
to,  and  due  to  him  from,  every  other  one  by  its  justice,  they  are  all 
interwoven  by  the  sacred  reciprocity  of  rendering  the  love  into  an 
absolutely  perfect  and  blessed  ethical  and  religious  society  or  soli- 
darity. I  say  a?id  religious,  because  all  true  ethics  or  morality  must 
be  essentially  religious,  as  the  whole  moral  system  is. 

If  all  had  continued  in  this  reciprocity,  each  would  have 
received  from  God,  beyond  the  mere  natural  consequences  of  his 
obedience,  a  positive  reward  according  to  his  good-desert;  and  by 
this  reward  justice,  as  retributive  to  the  obedient,  would  have  been 
fully  ?nei  a7id  satisfied.  NDV.e  would  ever  have  objected  to  this  retri- 
bution, because  universal  conscience  would  have  pronounced  it 
deserved  and  just,  and  would  have  condemned  withholding  it  as 
treating  them  contrary  to  their  desert,  and  purely  unjust.  But  the 
entrance  of  sin  into  the  universal  society  changed  the  relations  of 
all  its  actors  to  God  and  all  the  persistently  obedient,  just  as,  in  a 
nation,  rebellion  and  crime  change  those  of  their  actors  to  its  ruler 
and  loyal  people.  All  guilty  of  it  have  forfeited  their  natural  right, 
and  their  moral  too,  if  they  had  one,  to  the  love  of  God  and  all  others 
in  the  holy  society;  and,  by  their  sin,  they  deserve  retributive  pun- 
ishment, and  justice  demands  its  infliction  upon  them  to  the  measure 
of  their  desert,  unless  its  end,  which  is  that  of  the  law  in  relation  to 
the  loyal  society,  can  be  equally  secured  in  some  other  way.  It 
demands  this,  just  as  it  does,  that  God  shall  favor  the  innocent  and 
reward  the  perfectly  obedient.  Precisely  as  the  conscience  of  man- 
kind affirms  that  the  perfectly  obedient  deserve  a  positive  retribu- 
tive reward,  and  would  condemn  withholding  it  and  treating  them 
as  if  they  did  not  deserve  it  as  injustice,  it  affirms  that  sinners 
deserve  positive  retributive  punishment,  and  would  condemn  with- 
holding it  and  treating  them  as  if  deserving  the  reward  of  obedience 


DUE  OF  LOVE  AND  DUE  OF  SUFFERING.  47 

as  injustice,  unless  the  end  of  that  punishment  can  be  at  least  equally 
secured  in  their  behalf  in  some  other  just  way.  Any  objection,  there- 
fore, to  the  positive  retributive  punishment  of  sinners  is  equally  to  the 
positive  retributive  rewarding  of  the  sinlessly  obedient — is  equally 
nugatory.  Retributive  justice,  whether  in  rewarding  or  in  punish- 
ing, is,  in  principle,  the  same  as  ethical,  which  consists  in  rendering 
to  all  who  have  rights  according  to  them,  and  to  all  who  have  deserts 
according  to  them — to  the  perfectly  obedient  according  to  both — to 
sinners  who  have  forfeited  all  their  rights,  natural  and  moral,  if  they 
ever  had  such,  according  to  their  desert  of  punishment.  Punish- 
ing by  God  or  any  rightful  human  ruler  is  as  much  ethical  justice  to 
all  the  loyal  and  Himself  over  them,  as  rewarding,  or  any  other  just 
action  towards  the  obedient  is  to  them.  As  there  is  but  one  law,  hav- 
ing but  one  matter  and  one  end,  and,  as  justice  is  an  essential 
quality  of  that  law,  there  tan  be  but  one  justice,  however  it  may  be 
varied  in  its  applications  to  moral  beings,  according  to  their  rights, 
when  they  have  any,  and  according  to  their  characters  and  deserts, 
good  or  evil,  and  their  consequent  relations  to  God  and  each  other. 

§  29.  REFUSING  TO  RENDER  TO  GOD  AND  ALL  OTHERS  THEIR  DUE  OF 
MORAL  LOVE  CREATES  A  CORRELATIVE  DUE  TO  THEM  OF  RETRI- 
BUTIVE SUFFERING. 

We  have  already  said*  that  it  is  just  as  certain  as  the  facts  con- 
cerning what  the  law  requires,  that  whoever  does  not  render  to  God 
the  love  which  it  enjoins  as  due  to  Him  by  all  His  rights,  and  to 
men  the  balanced  love  which  it  enjoins  as  due  to  thera  by  whatever 
rights  they  may  have,  and  which  it  is  due  to  God  to  render  to  them, 
because  He  commands  it  as  He  has  an  absolute  right  to  do,  thereby 
creates  another  due  from  him  to  God  and  them,  which  he  owes  them  as 
really,  though  not  as  absolutely  till  probation  ends,  as  he  does  the 
love — that  is,  the  due  of  suffer  itig  the  retributive  punishment  he  deserves. 
The  proofs  of  this,  already  indicated,  are  the  sense  of  guilt  or  ill- 
desert — the  dooming  by  conscience  to  retributive  punishment  from 
God — the  common  endeavor  of  mankind  to  justify  or  extenuate 
their  sins  or  crimes  so  as  to  nullify  or  palliate  them — their  prayers 
for  mercy  or  pardon  from  God — the  frequent  cases  of  voluntary 
confession  of  hidden  crimes  and  even  solicitation  of  punishment  for 
them — men's  spontaneous  ideas  of  the  justice  and  benevolence  of 
legitimate  human  laws  and  governments  with  their  sanctions — the 
language  they  have  ever  used  respecting  the  suffering  of  penal  retri- 

(*)  §  24,  p.  34. 


48  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

butions  by  evil-doers,  expressing  the  intuitive  affirmations  of  their 
consciences,  that  they  have  paid  or  are  paying  a  debt,  what  they 
owed  di'sxA  is  due  from  them,  and  that  they  have  received  or  are  get- 
ting their  reward,  their  wages,  and  their  deserts — and  the  hope  so 
often  expressed  by  wronged  ones  and  others  respecting  those  who 
have  perpetrated  the  wrongs  or  crimes,  and  escaped  just  punish- 
ment from  men,  that  they  will  not  escape,  but  will  suffer  it  from  God. 
Proofs  superabundant.  This  due  to  God  and  other  moral  beings, 
this  debt  to  them  of  penal  suffering  is  solely  by  justice  in  the  law, 
and  as  independent  of  mere  imposition  by  Divine  will  or  institution 
as  the  law  and  the  mutual  due  and  debt  of  moral  love  by  it  are;  and 
it  can  no  more  be  disregarded  by  God  than  these  can  without  dis- 
regarding the  law  in  His  own  and  all  other  moral  natures.  This 
penal  suffering  is  the  naturally  demanded  substitute,  in  case  of  sin,  for 
the  love  required  by  the  law,  refused  and  violated,  besides  ivhich  the 
sinner  can  pay  back  no  other.  Consequently,  unless  it  can  be  paid 
for  him  by  another  according  to  Divine  arrangement,  it  must  be 
infallibly  exacted  from  him.  If  it  be  not  so  paid  for  him,  and  yet  is 
not  exacted  Irom  him,  the  law,  and  with  it  the  nature  of  moral 
beings  in  and  from  which  it  is,  is  violated  and  outraged;  their  right 
and  claim  to  mutual  moral  love,  which  make  it  ethical  justice,  are 
.practically  disregarded  and  nullified,  and  with  them  and  this  justice 
constituted  by  them,  this  love  is  no  longer  social,  but  a  mere  per- 
sonal matter,  which,  if  not  exercised  by  any  one,  no  others  have 
any  right  or  reason  to  blame  him;  good-desert  or  ill-desert  there 
can  be  none  recognized,  because  these  are  social  and  grounds  of 
justice;  man's  conscience  is  made  an  enormous  liar  in  all  its  affir- 
mations of  ill-desert  and  presignification  of  retributive  punishment 
from  God;  its  lie  is  His,  since  He  so  constituted  mankind  that  it 
speaks  as  for  Him ;  His  character  is  thus  darkened  as  void  of 
veracity;  His  justice,  benevolence,  and  holiness  are  fictions,  or 
metamorphosed  to  their  opposites;  all  ground  of  confidence  in  and 
love  for  Him  is  swept  away;  and  selfishness  with  all  its  Titanic 
progeny  of  special  outbreaks  ot  wrong,  villainy,  vice,  and  crime  is 
licensed  to  raid  and  ravage  the  world  and  the  universe  at  will, 
except  as  the  knowledge  of  its  comparatively  puny  natural  conse- 
quences may,  for  a  time,  slightly  retard  its  ruinous  sweep  and  devas- 
tation. All  this,  and  worse,  is  the  certain  alternative,  if  this  debt  of 
penal  suffering  is  not  paid  either  by  sinners  themselves,  or  by  a 
Divinely  appointed  and  accepted  substitute.  We  have  abundantly 
shown  that  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  cannot  possibly  be  this 


GOD  NECESSARILY  RULER.  49 

retributive  suffering,  since  they  are  not  social,  as  the  law  is,  but 
merely  constitutional  and  personal,  and  would  be  essentially  the 
same,  provided  created  moral  natures  could  continue  to  exist  if 
there  were  no  God  or  He  should  leave  them  entirely  alone;  so  that 
they  are  not  properly  retributions  at  all.  They  are  not  what  con- 
science threatens,  and  express  nothing  concerning  the  interests, 
concerns,  claims,  and  rights  of  God  and  His  loyal  society  by  the 
law  and  their  natures.  As  the  rewarding,  so  the  punishing  must  be 
social,  because  the  due  it  secures  to  God  and  His  loyal  society,  like 
that  of  the  love  enjoined  by  the  law,  the  law  itself  and  its  justice, 
and  the  moral  nature  which  contains  and  issues  it  are  all  social. 
In  other  words,  it  must  be  a  real  paying  back  to  the  guilty,  which 
will,  as  far  as  possible,  vindicate  the  interests,  concerns,  and  rights 
of  God  and  His  loyal  society. 

§  30.    GOD    NECESSARILY    RULER,   AND    MUST   RULE    ACCORDING  TO 

THE    LAW. 

As  was  said  in  Chapter  I.,  the  law  is  given  by  each  one's  moral 
reason,  not  as  His,  but  as  God's;  and  conscience,  in  its  sense  of 
good-desert  and  ill-desert  and  in  its  presignifications  of  reward  and 
punishment,  ever  announces  Him  as  the  Ruler  of  all  and  the  admin- 
istrator of  these.  Hence,  as  obedience  and  disobedience  to  the 
law  are  to  Him,  it  is  His  prerogative  to  administer  retributions  for 
them;  and  the  authority  of  men  to  administer  them  for  overt  acts  in 
certain  relations  and  circumstances  is  delegated  by  Him.  As  He 
represents  both  Himself  and  His  rational  creatures,  both  His  own 
right  and  that  of  each  of  them  to  the  moral  love  of  all  others,  both 
His  own  and  their  interests  and  concerns  through  all  ages  in  having 
these  rights  met,  and  as  He  alone  has  adequate  qualifications  of 
knowledge,  power,  benevolence,  and  all  righteousness  to  administer 
a  perfect  government  over  all  the  moral  beings  He  has  made,  it  is 
absolutely  certain  that  He  must  recognize  Himself  as  under  the 
highest  obligation  His  own  infinite  nature  can  impose,  either  to 
execute  perfect  justice  in  administering  rewards  and  punishments 
according  to  the  exact  deserts  of  each  as  he  knows  them,  or  to 
adopt  for  sinners  some  measure  of  substitution  which  will  as  per- 
fectly secure  what  is  due  to  Himself  and  all  the  loyal  from  them  as 
the  infliction  of  punitive  retribution  on  themselves  would,  so  that  as 
many  of  them  as  will  return  to  loyalty  and  rely  on  that  measure  for 
forgiveness  will  be  saved.  He  cannot  deal  with  any  of  them  as  if 
dissociated  and  isolated  from  the  whole  society;  for,  by  their  nature 


50  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

and  the  law,  they  all  stand  interlinked  in  everlasting  social  connec- 
tion and  responsibility,  and  he  must  deal  with  each  according  as 
this  organic  union  and  the  greatest  good  of  all  require.  Hence, 
He  cannot  exempt  any  sinner  from  the  punishment  he  deserves, 
even  if  he  should  repent,  which  none  ever  would  do,  unless  the  due 
from  him  to  Himself  and  the  whole  society  is  secured  by  some  com- 
plete substitution  for  that  punishment.  And  here  we  must  note  that, 
while  the  law  is  the  same  in  God's  mind  as  in  created  minds,  there 
are  appendages  to  it  in  theirs  which  are  not  to  it  in  His.  In  His,  it 
does  not  stand  as  the  law  of  another,  binding  to  obedience  and 
accountability  to  him,  while  in  theirs  it  is  given  as  His,  binding 
them  to  obedience  and  accountability  to  Him.  Nothing,  therefore, 
can  be  argued  from  its  standing  in  His  in  favor  of  its  being  imper- 
sonal and  without  sanctions  of  real  retributions  in  theirs.  We  might 
suppose,  a  priori,  that  He  would  thus  difference  it  in  them. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Additional  objections  to  tlie  tlieory  that  the  natural  consequences 
of  moral  action,  good  or  bad,  are  its  retributions,  or  of  them;  and  why 
the  notion,  that  God^s  government  over  men  ard  all  moral  beings  is 
only  a  natural  one,  is  absurd. 

§3T.    WHY  THESE    CONSEQUENCES   ARE    DEFECTIVELY    KNOWN   BY   MEN, 
UNEQUAL,  NOT  \VHAT  THEY  DESERVE,  AND  NOT  RETRIBUTIONS. 

I.  The  first  of  these  objections  is  the  very  defective  knowledge 
of  them  possessed  by  mankind.  They  can  be  known  by  them  in 
only  three  ways — (i),  by  each  one's  own  experience — (2),  by  his 
observation  of  the  manifestations  of  them  in  and  by  others — (3),  by 
such  information  concerning  them  as  he  may  in  all  ways  acquire 
from  others.  They  are  not  all  developed  and  apparent  at  once  in 
any  case,  especially  not  the  most  important  and  continuous  of  them. 
A  large  proportion  of  those  of  obedience,  on  the  one  hand,  which  are 
like  bodily  growth  from  childhood  onwards,  and  of  those  of  sin,  on 
the  other,  which  are  like  stealthy  disease  begun  in  a  body,  can  only 
be  recognized  in  their  advances  after  somewhat  protracted  intervals 
of  time.  Some,  doubtless,  of  both  the  best  and  the  worst  of  them 
remain  unrecognized  by  their  subjects  through  life;  others  of  them 
are  but  slightly,  perhaps  only  occasionally,  felt  or  realized;  and 
none  of  them  are  consciously  experienced  in  extreme  degrees,  or 
beyond  even  meager  measures,  except  by  comparatively  a  few,  and 
by  them  ordinarily  very  seldom.  Then,  they  are  not  experienced 
by  all  equally  according  to  the  real  desert  of  each — certainly  not  in 
this  life,  and,  for  the  same  reasons,  quite  surely  not  in  the  next.  The 
reasons  in  the  case  of  mankind  are:  (i),  the  natural  differences  of 
each  from  every  other  one  in  faculties,  temperament,  and  suscepti- 
bilities of  mind;  (2),  in  conditions  of  life  and  relations  to  others  in 
the  family,  community,  nation,  or  tribe;  (3),  in  education,  training, 
and  all  cultivation  or  want  of  it;  (4),  in  true  or  false,  pure  or  cor- 
rupt«  Christian  or  any  different,  views  or  practices  of  morality  and 


52  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

religion;  and,  (5),  in  right  or  wrong,  good  or  bad  courses  of  conduct 
or  action.  On  account  of  these  and  other  differencing  facts,  the 
degrees  to  which  a  large  proportion  at  least  of  these  consequences 
are  experienced  by  different  ones  are  just  as  many  and  various  as 
they.  Observation  and  testimony  make  it  sure  that  no  two  persons, 
even  though  children  of  the  same  parents  and  in  essentially  the 
same  environment  of  good  or  evil  conditions  and  influences,  have 
them  in  the  same  degrees,  especially  those  of  wrong  action  of  what- 
ever criminality.  The  scale  of  the  degrees  of  natural  susceptibility 
to  them  in  different  persons  is  one  of  countless  grades  from  lowest 
to  highest.  Another  fact  respecting  this  susceptibility  to  them,  as 
far  at  least  as  those  of  sin,  vice,  and  crime  are  concerned,  is,  that, 
whatever  its  comparative  degree  in  anyone  may  be,  his  conscious 
experience  of  them,  among  which  are  all  the  workings  of  conscience 
and  the  unhappiness  and  misery  they  involve  and  create,  is  far  the 
keenest  and  most  distressing  in  the  beginnings  and  special  steps  of 
advance  in  willful  wickedness  and  enormity.  He  whose  conscience 
condemned  him,  and  filled  him  with  an  appalling  sense  of  guilt, 
with  forebodings  of  deserved  retribution  from  God,  and  with  deep 
distress,  and  even  anguish,  for  his  first  lie,  oath,  theft,  or  any  other 
such  breach  of  obligation  to  God  or  man,  becomes  before  long  at 
farthest,  by  repeating  that  first  offence  or  committing  and  practicing 
others,  so  hardened  and  insusceptible  of  such  experiences  of  the 
workings  of  exasperated  or  irritated  conscience,  that  it  is  as  if  wholly 
or  nearly  paralyzed  to  imperturbable  apathy.  Veterans  in  vice  and 
crime,  especially  in  flagitious  enormities,  are  commonly  as  uncon- 
scious of  such  experiences  as  the  lower  animals,  and  often  as  statues 
of  stone,  while  novices  in  them  are  as  commonly  distressed,  and,  in 
numberless  cases,  even  racked  and  tortured  by  the  workings  of  their 
consciences.  Merely  to  indicate  these  facts  is  to  expose  the  pre- 
posterous folly  of  even  imagining  the  natural  consequences  of  moral 
action  capable  of  !)eing,  in  any  sense,  the  sanctions,  or  among  them, 
of  the  everlasting  law  of  the  universal  and  endless  society  of  moral 
beings  under  God.  Its  sanctions  are  the  predeclared  retributions 
according  to  real  desert  for  obedience  and  sin,  and  are  thus  the 
motives  to  the  one  and  against  the  other.  Such  all  the  facts  stated 
demonstrate  these  consequences  wholly  inadequate  to  be,  both  by 
their  imbecility  as  motives,  and  by  their  lack  of  every  other  neces- 
sary qualification.  It  we  look  at  the  case  in  the  light  of  other 
involved  and  related  facts  and  principles,  the  conclusion  stated  will 
be  made  invincibly  certain. 


UNADAPTED  AND  INCOMPETEMT.  53 

§  32.    WHY   THEY   ARE    UNADAPTED   AND    INCOMPETENT  TO  BE  THE 
law's    SANCTIONS. 

2.  Not  only  are  these  consequences  wholly  inadequate  by  their 
imbecility  as  motives,  for  the  reasons  shown,  to  be  the  sanctions  of 
the  law,  but  they  are  also  intrinsically  unadapted  and  incompetent  in 
every  respect  to  be  such.  What  expression  are  they  of  the  abso- 
lute importance  of  the  law  as,  by  its  justice,  the  great  social-moral 
bond  of  the  rational  universe,  of  the  holy  love  which  fulfills  it,  and 
of  the  everlasting  blessedness  of  moral  beings  dependent  on  its  exer- 
cise? What  expression  are  they  of  all  the  social  evil  and  injury  of 
sin,  of  its  fearfully  contagious  influence  and  terrible  tendencies,  and 
of  all  the  destruction  of  happiness  and  well-being,  and  existence  of 
misery  and  ill-being,  which  it  creates  and  propagates?  What  expres- 
sion are  they  of  God's  interest  in  and  concern  for  the  true  hiippi- 
ness  of  His  intelligent  creatures? — of  His  estimation  of  the  law  in 
His  own  nature  and  in  theirs,  and  so  of  all  moral  nature  itself,  as 
masterful  over  it  universally? — of  His  corresponding  hostility  to 
sin  and  its  effects  and  tendencies? — of  His  responsibility  to  His 
rational  creatures,  as  their  Creator  and  natural  Guardian? — of  His 
benevolent  regard  for  the  interests,  concerns,  rights,  and  dues  of  the 
obedient,  invaded  and  trampled  upon  by  the  disobedient? — of  His 
ethical  justice  and  righteousness  towards  them  as  in  His  eternal 
moral  system? — of  His  veracity  in  the  averments  and  prophecies 
of  conscience,  and  in  the  representations  of  Scriptures  which  we 
have  referred  to? — and  of  His  whole  character?  To  say  that  these 
consequences,  as  they  are  or  can  be  known  by  mankind,  constitute 
any  adequate  expression  of  these  supreme  realities  of  God  and  His 
universe  is  "pure,  heroical  defect  of  thought."  How  then  can  they 
be  the  sanctions,  or  among  them,  of  His  eternal  moral  law  and 
government?  As  we  said  in  a  preceding  place,*  they  are  simply 
indications  and  heraldings  in  created  moral  natures  of  a  direct, 
positive  moral  government  over  them;  and  to  make  them  tlic  sanc- 
tions, or  sanctions  at  all,  of  the  law  is  not  only  mere  naturalism,  but 
is  to  assign  to  them  a  function  for  which  they  are  utterly  unadapted 
by  lacking  every  qualifying  characteristic  to  be  such. 

§  2)2,-    AS    ITS    SANCTIONS,  WOULD  BE  IN    CONFLICT   WITH    ITS    INTRINSIC 

NATURE. 

3.  To  make  them  the  sanctions  of  the  law  is  to  conflict  with  its 
intrinsic  nature,  which,  by  its  quality  of  justice,  is,  as  we  have  seen, 

(*)  §  22,  p.  37. 


54  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

the  one  eternal  social  bond  which  ties  all  moral  beings,  not  revolters 
against  it,  into  a  social-moral  society  or  solidarity.  Because  it  is 
its  quality  of  justice  which  makes  it  this  bond,  its  sanctions  are  as 
purely  just  and  social  in  end  and  aim  as  its  precept  is.  It  is  the 
proper  business  of  each  created  moral  agent  to  obey  the  precept  by 
exercising  pure  moral  love  or  good-will  to  God  and  his  fellows,  as  is 
due  to  each  by  natural  or  moral  right,  or  as  enjoined  by  God;  and 
if  he  does,  he  deserves  a  corresponding  reward;  if  he  does  not,  a 
corresponding  punishment.  It  is  the  business  of  God,  as  Ruler,  to 
make  His  law  known,  and  that  He  will,  after  the  close  of  each  one's 
probation,  administer  these  retributions  exactly  according  to  his  actual 
desert  ai  infallibly  known  to  Him,  except  in  the  cases  of  all  who, 
having  sinned,  have  been  restored  and  forgiven.  In  administering 
rewards,  God  executes  exact  ethical  justice  to  their  recipients  as  due 
from  both  Himself  and  the  entire  society  under  and  represented  by 
Him;  but,  in  administering  punishments.  He  executes  exact  retrib- 
utive justice  upon  their  recipients  as  ethical  justice  to  Himself  and 
the  universal  society  wronged  and  injureil  by  them  demands.  That 
is,  retributive  justice  to  sinners  is  ethical  justice  to  God  and  the 
entire  and  eternal  holy  society.  Thus  only  can  He  maintain  and 
carry  on  the  moral  system  founded  in  and  demanded  by  His  own 
and  all  created  moral  natures;  and  it  is  thus  manifest  that  the  end 
of  His  administration  of  the  sanctions  of  the  law  is  precisely  the 
same  as  that  of  the  obedience  of  moral  beings  to  its  precept,  to  Him- 
self, and  to  all  others  than  sinners.  As,  therefore,  the  precept  of  the 
law  is  perfectly  just  and  thus  perfectly  morally-social,  so  necessarily 
must  its  sanctions  be.  They  must  correspond  in  every  respect, 
while  the  natural  consequences  of  moral  action  do  not  and  cannot 
in  any.  Neither  are  those  of  right  action  conferred  nor  conferrable, 
nor  are  those  of  wrong  action  inflicted  nor  inflictable,  by  God,  nor 
is  either  class  of  them  preventable  by  Him.  They  are  the  neces- 
sary products  of  each  one's  own  moral  nature  as  affected  by  his 
moral  action,  and  would  be  essentially  what  they  are,  provided 
moral  actors  could  continue  to  exist  and  act,  if  God  did  not,  or  took 
absolutely  no  notice  of  or  concern  about  them.  Being  such,  they 
have  no  governmental  characteristic  or  quality,  no  social  aim  or 
effect,  no  adjustment  to  real  desert,  good  or  ill  and  therefore  no 
quality  of  justice  in  them,  either  as  ethical  to  all  or  any  of  the  uni- 
versal society  with  God  in  and  over  it,  or  as  retributive  to  sinners 
against  them  and  Him.  Just  because  there  is  no  quality  of  justice 
in  them,  with  them  for  sanctions   there  could  be  no  possible  admin- 


FIVE  BRIEF  OBJECTIONS.  55 

istration  of  justice  in  the  intelligent  universe,  and  consequently  no 
moral  system,  no  moral  government,  no  real  moral  law,  but  mere 
advice  only,  and  neither  justice,  benevolence,  nor  moral  concern  or 
care  in  Him  for  them — nothing  but  numbers  numberless  of  moral 
beings  as  unrelated  in  any  governmental  sense  as  sand-grains  in  a 
sand  heap,  each  having  a  conscience  attesting  that  he  will  receive 
retribution  from  God  "  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  his  body, 
good  or  bad,"  or  just  as  he  deserves,  but  lying,  as  not  one  of  them 
will  receive  any  from  Him.  The  only  rewarder  and  punisher  of 
each  is  his  own  nature;  and,  since  it  is  a  chief  and  essential  part  of 
the  function  of  government  to  administer  the  sanctions  of  the  law, 
and  since,  according  to  this  naturalistic  notion,  these  consequential 
products  oi  each  one's  own  nature  as  affected  by  sin  are  the  only 
sanctions,  the  plain  conclusion  is,  that  no  one  has  or  can  have 
any  moral  ruler — that  God  is  not  one  at  all,  not  even  in  the  sense 
in  which  a  Father  is.  Of  course,  no  one  can  be  responsible  or 
accountable  to  Him  in  any  sense,  nor  even  to  himself  in  a  real 
moral  sense,  because  he  has  no  intelligent,  voluntary  agency  or 
part  in  executing  these  consequences,  but  his  nature  executes  them 
all  as  involuntarily,  undesigningly,  unknowingly,  and  necessarily  as 
material  nature  executes  any  of  its  operations.  Not  only,  therefore, 
is  there  no  correspondence  between  these  consequences,  if  they  are 
the  sanctions  of  the  law,  and  its  social-moral  precept,  but  it  is  an 
absurdity  to  think,  and  a  misnomer  to  call,  them  its  sanctions  in 
any  real,  normal  sense,  or  their  production  by  the  nature  of  each 
actor  as  affected  by  his  moral  action,  good  or  bad,  government  in 
any  sense  of  the  word,  when  there  is  not  one  single  characteristic  of 
government  in  the  case.  If  God  has  no  positive  moral  government 
with  positive  sanctions  which  make  it  such.  He  must  be  chargeable 
with  withholding  from  His  intelligent  creatures  the  concern  and 
care  which  His  creative  and  moral  relations  to  them  demand — with 
indifference  to  their  characters,  mutual  treatment,  rights,  dues, 
deserts,  interests,  concerns,  and  destinies — and  so  with  being  neither 
just  nor  benevolent,  but  the  direct  contrary,  towards  them. 

§  34.    FIVE    BRIEF    OBJECTIONS    TO    THE    THEORY    TH.\T    THESE    CONSE- 
QUENCES ARE   REAL  RETRIBUTIONS. 

4.  This  theory,  that  the  natural  consequences  of  moral  action 
are  real  retributions,  and  that  God  will  administer  no  positive  ones, 
is  anti-psycological.  It  contradicts  essential  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness and  their  characteristics  concerning  the  law  and  retri- 


56  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

butions.  This  is  manifest  from  what  we  have  shown  respecting  the 
action  of  conscience  in  its  intuitive  affirmation  that  righteous  action 
deserves  reward  from  God  and  men,  and  unrighteous  action  deserves 
punishment  from  Him  and  them;  in  its  sense  of  guilt;  and  in  its 
demand  for  and  presignifications  of  punitive  retributions  from  God 
in  wrong-doers  themselves  and  in  others  cognizant  of  their  wrong 
action.  It  sets  aside  the  quality  of  justice  in  the  law  as  it  relates 
to  all  wrong-doers;  and  implies  that  sin,  however  great,  forfeits 
nothing. 

5.  It  is  a  theory  of  pure  individualism,  entirely  at  war  with  the 
social  rvdXwxQ.  and  end  of  the  law,  and  thus  with  the  social  nature  of 
moral  beings  and  the  possibility  of  a  moral  system.  As  these  con- 
sequences ot  moral  action  are  all  personal,  what  kind  of  a  moral 
system  is  possible  with  them  alone?  Such  individualism  is  incom- 
patible with  the  social  character  of  the  law;  with  any  right  of  God 
and  other  holy  beings  to  the  love  of  each  other  or  of  any  one,  and 
so  with  all  justice;  with  the  fact  that  it  is  justly  their  interest  and 
concern  whether  any  do  or  do  not  render  moral  love  to  them  and  to 
all;  with  all  the  action  of  conscience  respecting  retributions  from 
God;  and  with  all  moral  accountability  and  responsibility.  The 
theory  makes  it  solely  each  one's  own  concern  and  interest  whether 
he  will  love  God  and  his  fellow  beings,  or  will  be  purely  selfish,  even 
to  the  most  criminal  degree,  since  in  either  case  these  personal  con- 
sequences are  the  only  retributions  he  will  receive. 

6.  By  thus  stripping  God  of  any  administration  of  real  retri- 
butions, this  theory  thrusts  Him  away  to  the  remove  from,  and 
indifference  to  His  rational  creatures  ascribed  to  Him  by  Epicurus 
— seats  Him,  as  it  were,  in  an  easy  chair  in  the  far  off  heavens, 
utterly  relieved  of  all  interference  with  the  constitutional  machine 
of  every  one's  nature,  and  only  looking  on,  if  He  concerns  Him- 
self to  do  even  that,  to  see  how  it  works  out  all  retributions.  It 
thus  eliminates  from  Him  all  justice,  benevolence,  and  positive 
goodness,  and  leaves  Him  with  only  their  opposites,  or,  at  best,  free 
from  the  law  and  without  any  moral  character. 

7.  It  makes  Him  speak  falsely  through  conscience  in  its  decis- 
ions on  ill-desert,  in  its  sense  of  guilt,  and  in  its  presignifications  of 
rewards  and  punishments  from  Him,  thus  implying  that  both  He 
and  conscience  lack  veracity. 

8.  It  makes  all  exercise  of  mercy  and  grace  towards  sinners 
impossible  for  Him  as  far  as  releasing  them  from  any  positive  or 
proper  punishment  is  concerned.     If  the  law  does  not  demand,  and 


CONSEQUENCES  FROM  CONSCIENCE,  HOW  AFFECTED.       57 

He  will  never  inflict  punitive  retributions  on  them,  how  can  He 
exercise  mercy  and  grace  in  doing  anything  to  rescue  them  from  it, 
or  in  forgiving  them  ?  Forgiveness,  pardon,  remission  of  sins  are 
words  without  meaning,  and  prayer,  for  it  absurd,  if  this  theory  is 
true;  and  a  real  atonement  is  impossible.  Natural  consequences 
cannot  be  forgiven,  pardoned,  nor  remitted. 

§35.    AS  FAR  AS  THEY    CONSIST  IN    THE   ACTION    OF  CONSCIENCE,   MUST 
BE  COMPARATIVELY  SLIGHT,  AND,  AS  MOTIVES,  WEAK. 

9.  As  far  as  these  consequences,  whether  of  obedience  or  of  sin, 
consist  in  the  action  of  conscience  and  its  effects,  they  must  be 
exceedingly  slight,  if  there  are  no  positive  .etributions,  compared 
with  what  they  must  be,  if  there  are.  Through  the  wondrous  social 
nature  of  moral  beings,  the  approval  and  smile  of  conscience  and 
the  sense  of  good-desert  in  the  well-doer,  and  its  condemnation  and 
remorse  and  the  sense  of  ill-desert  in  the  ill-doer,  are  greatly  quick- 
ened and  energized,  and  the  happiness  or  unhappiness  they  consti- 
tute are  correspondingly  augmented,  by  the  expectation  or  reception 
of  rewards  or  punishment  administered  by  legitimate  authority  or 
government.  If  this  is  so,  when  these  are  administered  by  human 
authority  and  express  the  approving  or  condemning  verdict  and 
sense  of  the  conscience  of  men  represented  by  that  authority,  how 
much  more  must  it  be  so,  when  they  are  administered  by  God  and 
express  the  approving  or  condemning  verdict  and  sense  of  His  infi- 
nite conscience,  and,  with  it,  of  all  true  conscience  in  the  universe? 
What  augmented  currents  of  happiness  or  unhappiness  must  the 
reception,  if  any  shall  be,  of  positive  rewards  or  punishments  from 
God  cause  the  consciences  of  both  the  holy  and  the  unholy  to  pour 
through  their  immortal  natures  forever!  On  the  contrary,  we  know 
that,  in  this  world,  if  the  fear  of  punishment  by  man  in  time,  or  by 
God  in  eternity,  is  removed,  the  natural  consequences  of  wrong- 
doing, even  of  crimes,  produced  by  conscience,  are  removed  or 
greatly  mitigated.  Assurance  of  endless  exemption  from  punish- 
ment would  infallibly  reduce  them  to  comparative  trifles;  and  equal 
assurance  of  its  permanent  infliction  would  correspondingly  aggra- 
vate them.  And,  for  obvious  reasons,  they  must  always  be  vastly 
more  aggravated  by  connection  with  positive  punishment  than 
without  it. 

10.  If  these  consequences  of  moral  action  are  its  only  retribu- 
tions, the  motives  to  obedience  and  against  sin  are  ificalculably  less 
than  if,  beyond  these,  there  are  positive  ones  to  be  administered  by 


S8  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

God.  They  are  less  both  by  the  absence  of  those  which  are  sup- 
plied by  the  knowledge  of  future  positive  ones,  and  by  the  com- 
parative want  of  weight  in  them,  just  shown,  if  that  knowledge  is 
rejected. 

§  56.    THIS  THEORY  HAS  A  RUINOUS  BEARING  ON  THE   REVEALED  CHAR- 
ACTER OF  GOD. 

II.  Tliis  theory  has  a  most  damaging  bearing  on  the  character 
of  God.  When  we  consider  how  great  the  liability  of  created  moral 
natures  must  be  during  their  novitiate,  especially  at  its  outset,  while 
their  intelligence  is  so  weak  and  their  sensibility  so  susceptible  to 
ind  urgent  for  gratification,  and  before  they  have  any  experience 
of  the  natural  consequences  of  either  kind  of  moral  action,  to  fall 
into  sin  and  a  current  ot  ruin; — when  we  consider  how  sin,  begun 
by  one,  tends,  like  an  appalling  contagion  or  epidemic,  to  infect 
others  with  ever-extending  propagation,  as  the  cases  of  the  fallen 
angels  and  of  our  race  demonstrate; — and  when  we  consider  what 
the  natural  consequences  of  sin,  however  defectively  realized  or 
lessened  by  lack  of  positive  punishment,  must  be  and  involve  wher- 
ever it  spreads — what  can  be  more  certain  than  that  God,  the  Cre- 
ator and  Continuer  of  all  such  natures,  must  be  bound  by  an  infinite 
obligation,  imposed  by  an  imperative  of  His  own  nature,  to  make 
the  motives  tq  obedience  and  against  sin  just  as  weighty  as  He  can 
according  to  the  law,  its  justice,  and  its  end,  which  is  the  real  good 
of  such  natures  secured  by  obedience?  By  sparing  the  first  sinning 
pair  and  continuing  our  race.  He  certainly  has  assumed  this  obliga- 
tion towards  it;  and  He  can  righteously  augment  the  motives  before 
mankind  and  all  moral  beings  in  their  novitiate  immensely  by 
revealing  to  them  that  He  will  administer  positive  retributions.  He 
can  augment  them  in  no  other  way  than  by  such  a  revelation;  and, 
if  He  does  not  make  it,  as,  according  to  this  theory,  he  does  not, 
how  is  it  possible  to  vindicate  His  character?  How  is  He  good, 
how  love,  if  He  does  not  do  what  love  demands,  all  He  righteously 
can  to  conserve  His  rational  creatures,  especially  our  race,  by  con- 
tinuing which  He  has  assumed  towards  it  the  obligation  stated,  from 
ruining  themselves  by  sin  and  its  natural  consequences  ?— how,  if 
He  does  not  augment  the  motives  to  right  and  against  wrong  moral 
action  to  the  utmost  degree  consistent  with  and  demanded  by 
justice?  As,  during  their  novitiate,  they  are  unconfirmed  in  char- 
acter, good  or  bad,  and  must,  by  their  own  wills,  arbitrate,  under 
the  motives  beiore  and  the  influences  upon  them,  what  it  shall  be; 


AUGMENTATION  OF  MOTIVES,    WHY  NECESSARY.  59 

and  as  obedience  to  the  law  must  consist  in  their  free  choice  of  the 
end  or  ends  it  prescribes,  made  under  these  motives  and  influences, 
it  is  necessary  that  these  should  be  augmented  to  the  utmost  mor- 
ally possible  degree  to  secure  this  choice.  It  is  as  impossible  for 
God  to  secure  it  trom  them  by  force,  as  it  is  to  secure  it  from  stones 
by  motives  and  influences.  The  want  of  adaptation  is  as  total  in 
the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  Since,  therefore,  the  motives  and  influ- 
ences inciting  to  sin  create  such  fearful  hazard  to  all  created  moral 
natures  during  their  novitiate,  especially  to  the  disordered  ones  of 
our  race,  what  can  be  more  manifest  than  that,  in  order  to  conserve 
the  unfallen  and  restore  the  fallen  as  far  as  possible,  or  to  do  all 
possible  for  those  ends,  it  is  necessary  that  (iod  should  make  the 
motives  and  influences  inciting  to  obedience  and  against  sin  just  as 
potential  and  moving  as  He  can  according  to  the  justice  and  end  of 
the  law,  and  all  that  is  true  of  them  and  their  relations.  He  can  do 
this  only  by  revealing  to  them  that  He  will  administer  positive  retri- 
butions; and  He  has  in  fact  revealed  this  in  the  attestations  of  con- 
science in  the  sense  of  guilt  and  all  its  presignifications  of  Divine 
punishment,  not  now  to  say  in  His  inspired  revelation,  so  effectually 
that,  despite  all  their  conscious  fear  of  this  punishment,  they  have 
in  all  ages  and  nations  commonly  believed  in  it  as  well  as  in  future 
rewards,  have  been  greatly  influenced  by  it,  and  have  inculcated  its 
vast  importance.*  Nor  can  any  one  prove,  or  warrantably  assume, 
that  God  could  have  set  positive  retributions  before  mankind,  con- 
sistently with  the  social  relations  by  which  they  are  universally 
interlinked,  any  more  distinctly,  and  so  as  to  produce  any  greater 
motives,  than  He  has  done.  The  belief  in  them  has  always  been 
among  the  moral  and  religious  principia  of  the  race;  and  men  //7;- 
^^'•/'rj-i- away  from  this  belief  into  this  theory  of  natural  consequences, 
or  into  any  other  negation  of  it,  only  as  they  do  from  belief  in  the 
natural  freedom  of  the  will  into  a  denial  of  it,  or  from  any  essential 
truth  of  consciousness  into  its  contrary,  by  overlooking,  or,  under 
some  bias  of  will  against  it,  denying  that  it  is  given  in  consciousness. 
But  all  such  progress  is  destined  to  a  culprit's  fate,  as  is  all  in  con- 
flict with  God,  with  conscience,  with  moral  nature,  and  with  all 
essential  truth. 


(*)  See  "Theology  of  the  Greek  Poets,  by  Prof.  W.  S.  Tyler,"  referred  to  in 
note  on  p.  8,  §  11.  Homer,  pp.  197-198.  /Eschylus,  pp.  237-238.  Plato,  Republic 
IJ.  X.  6,  13.  The  philosophers,  not  atheistic,  generally  believed  in  the  immor- 
tality ol  souls  and  future  retributions.  See  numerous  places  in  Warburton's  Divine 
Lesralion. 


6o  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

To  these  eleven  objections,  after  some  remarks  on  them,  two 
others,  with  examinations  of  Butler's  theory  of  a  natural  govern- 
ment of  God  will  be  added. 

§  37.    EACH    AND    ALL    THESE    OBJECTIONS    FATAL    TO    THIS    THEORY, 
WHETHER    CHRISTIANITY  IS  TRUE  OR  FALSE. 

Let  it  be  noted,  then,  that  no  holder  of  this  theory  escapes  any 
of  these  objections  to  it  by  denying  Christianity.  Every  holder  of 
it,  believer  or  infidel,  is  under  a  necessity  either  to  discard  it  as  a 
baneful  error,  or  validly  to  show  that  each  of  them  is  baseless.  But, 
even  if  he  could  apparently  show  this,  he  would  not  prove,  nor  be 
warranted  to  assume,  that  there  will  not  be  positive  retributions; 
for  still  the  consentio  omnium  gentium  is  in  their  favor,  even  if  we 
could  find  no  other  basis  for  them.  This  agreement  of  all  nations 
in  believing  in  them  is  attested  by  all  ancient  literature  relative  to 
them,  and  this  goes  to  show  the  belief  of  them  coeval  with  man. 
There  is  no  record,  except  that  in  Gen.  2:17,  that  it  originated  in  a 
direct  revelation  from  God,  and  uo  evidence  that  it  has  been  diffused 
and  maintained  among  all  nations  merely  as  a  transmitted  tradition. 
The  only  warranted  conclusion  is,  that,  from  the  first  man  down,  it 
has  been  taught  to  the  whole  race  by  conscience,  and  that,  in  addi- 
tion to  this  inward  tuition  of  it,  it  has  been  inculcated  upon  each 
successive  generation  by  the  preceding.  In  what  sinning  soul,  not 
yet  in  moral  stupor,  does  not  conscience,  at  times  at  least,  stand  up 
and,  pointing  to  God,  as  recognized,  denounce  to  it — "  He  will  punish 
you  as  you  deserve?  "  Besides,  God's  inspired  revelation  is  thronged 
with  inculcations,  which  will  be  adduced  farther  on,  that  He  will 
administer  retributive  punishment  to  all  men  who  end  their  present 
lives  in  sin  according  to  their  deeds  done  in  the  body,  or  their  full 
ill-desert;  and  all  negation  of  such  retribution  is  thus  debarred  from 
acceptance  by  both  the  teachings  of  universal  conscience  and  oi 
Scripture.  There  never,  therefore,  can  be  any  other  basis  for  deny- 
ing positive  penal  retributions  and  holding  this  naturalistic  theory, 
than  a  voluntas  pro  7-atione,  a  sheer  assumption.  The  old  doctrine 
of  retributions  is  invincible  against  all  assaults,  on  whatever  ground 
its  opponents  may  choose  to  make  them. 

§  38.    POSITIVE    RETRIBUTORV  PUNISHMENTS  OFTEN  INFLICTED  IN  THIS 

WORLD. 

To  prevent  misapprehension,  we  here  add,  that  positive  retrib- 
utory  punishments  are  not  entirely    reserved  for  the   future  state. 


POSITIVE  RE  TRIE  UTOR  Y  PUNISHMENTS.  6i 

That  they  are  often  inflicted  in  this  life  is  attested  by  all  history, 
sacred  and  profane,  and  by  the  common  observation  of  mankind. 
Often  have  they  fallen  on  men  by  direct  visitations  of  God,  like 
bolts  from  His  hand,  and  often  through  the  instrumentality  of  human 
or  superhuman  agents,  good  and  bad,  of  irrational  creatures,  and  of 
inanimate  nature — sometimes  even  through  their  own  agency;  and 
they  have  been  inflicted,  not  on  individuals  only,  but  on  commu- 
nities, states,  and  nations,  and  often  by  these  on  one  another.  Of 
course,  atheists,  irrational  rationalists,  deniers  of  Providence,  mir- 
acles, and  the  Scriptural  revelation  shut  their  eyes  against  the  evi- 
dences, proofs,  and  authentic  facts,  demonstrative  of  the  truth  of 
this  statement;  but  neither  "  the  owlet  Atheism,"  nor  its  mated 
scepticism,  nor  all  credulous  incredulity  can  abolish  the  time-long 
series  of  authentic  facts  ot  such  punitive  retributions  in  this  world. 
In  the  great  court  of  mankind,  ever  in.  session,  and  embracing 
incomparably  the  largest  proportion  of  men  of  highest  scholarship, 
critical  capability,  fairness  of  mind,  and  all  qualifications,  the  decis- 
ion will  be,  as  it  ever  has  been,  that  God  often  administers  such 
retributions  in  this  world.  They  are  distinguished  from  discipli- 
nary chastisements  by  the  fact  that  they  manifestly  have  no  aim  to 
benefit  or  work  the  good  of  their  objects.*  The  sacred  histories  ot 
the  Bible  are  replete  with  examples  of  these  retributions.  Among 
them  are  the  destruction  of  the  race,  eight  excepted,  by  the  Noachic 
Deluge — of  the  cities  of  the  Jordan  plain  by  the  tempest  of  fire  and 
brimstone — of  Pharaoh  and  his  hosts  by  being  drowned  in  the  Red 
Sea — of  all,  except  two,  of  the  Israelites  who  came  out  of  Egypt, 
during  their  wanderings  in  the  desert,  when  they  rebelled  and  mur- 
mured against  the  Lord,  at  various  times,  in  various  numbers,  and 
by  various  means — of  great  numbers  of  them,  by  various  and 
numerous  inflictions,  from  their  entrance  into  Canaan  down  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Romans,  and  from  that  time  to  this 
— and  of  all  the  nations  around  and  connected  with  them,  according 
to  the  predictions  of  God's  prophets.  Numerous  examples  of  such 
retributions  on  individuals  are  given  in  these  histories,  among  which 
are  those  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  of  Achan,  of  Eli.  and  his 
two  sons,  of  Saul,  and  of  many  others  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
of  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  of  Herod  Agrippa  I.,  and  of  others  in 
the  New  Testament.  Secular  history  abounds  with  instances  of  the 
same  kind.    Why  have  assassins  so  generally  lost  their  own  lives? 


(*)  Note. — On  the  difference    between   punishment   and   chastisement,  see 
Mi\ller  "On  the  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  244-251. 


62  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

What  is  the  basis  of  the  adage — "Murder  will  out?"  Of  course, 
such  temporal,  punitive  retributions  must,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
be  imperfect.  They  are  neither  univerally  inflicted  on  great  crim- 
inals, nor  evenly  on  those  subjected  to  their  strokes;  but  they  are 
plainly  specimens  and  assurances  of  the  perfect  ones  to  be  inflicted 
in  the  future  state.* 

§  39.    CONFLICT  OF  THIS  THEORY  WITH  THE  SCRIPTURAL  DOCTRINE  OF 
THE  FINAL  JUDGMENT. 

9.  Another  objection  to  this  theory  of  natural  consequences  is 
its  antagonism  to  the  Scriptural  doctrine  of  the  final  judgment  of 
mankind.  The  time  of  this  judgment  is  called  a  day,  the  appointed 
day,  the  last  day,  the  day  of  the  Lord,  of  Christ,  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  day  of  God,  the  day  of  judgment, 
the  great  day  of  judgment,  the  day  of  judgment  and  perdition  of 
ungodly  men,  the  day  when  God  shall  judge  the  secrets  of  men  by 
Jesus  Christ,  the  day  when  God  shall  judge  the  world  in  righteous- 
ness by  the  man  whom  He  hath  ordained,  the  day  of  wrath  and 
revelation  of  the  righteous  judgment  of  God,  who  will  render  to 
every  man  according  to  his  works,  the  day  when  all  accepted  of 
Him  in  time  will  find  His  mercy  consummated.  It  is  a  definite 
time  at  the  end  of  the  world  and  of  the  race.  It  matters  not  what 
judgments,  so-called,  God  may  pass  and  execute  in  this  life  upon 
persons  or  any  number  of  mankind,  however  related,  they  differ 
essentially  in  design,  mode  of  execution,  and  effects  from  tJiis  filial 
one  of  our  whole  race  together;  and  to  ascribe  the  same  specific  char- 
acter to  them  as  to  it  is  to  confuse  things  essentially  different.  It 
belongs  to  the  fashion  of  many  in  these  times,  to  make  judgment 
mean  the  same  as  crisis  diOt%  in  English,  assuming  that,  because  this 
term  is  transferred  from  the  Greek  to  our  language,  it  had  the  same 
meaning  in  that  which  it  has  in  ours;  which  it  did  not  have.  The 
primary  meaning  of  the  Greek  word  is  separation,  division;  and 
thence  it  means  an  opinion  formed  or  expressed,  a  decision,  a  sen- 
tence; then  a  judicial  judgment,  including  a  sentence  of  acquital  or 
condemnation,  which  is  its  specific  meaning  in  all  passages  relating 


(*)  Note. — For  a  forcible  presentation  ot  the  importance  of  recognizing  the 
administration  of  such  retributions  in  this  life,  see  Hengstenberg's  Genuineness  of 
the  Pentateuch  (Ryland's  translation),  Vol.  II.,  pp.  473-487.  He  fails,  however, 
to  distinguish  them  from  the  mere  natural  consequences  of  sin  and  crime.  They 
are  produced  by  God's  own  agency  either  directly,  or  indirectly,  and,  but  for  it, 
would  not  occur.  See  also  Carlyle's  "Frederick  the  Great,"  I3ook  III.,  Chap. 
VIII. 


DAMAGES  THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD.  63 

to  the  final,  general  judgment.  This  is  wholly  the  act  of  the  Judge; 
and  any  crisis  it  causes  in  the  judged  is  no  part  of  it,  but  merely  one 
of  its  effects.  But  what  are  its  design  and  end?  Not  that  Christ, 
the  Judge,  may  acquire  any  knowledge  of  the  character  or  deeds  of 
any  before  Him,  for  His  previous  knowledge  of  them  is  perfect; 
nor  to  increase  the  self-knowledge  of  any  of  them,  although  in  con- 
nection with  their  perfectly  revived  memory  it  may  have  this 
effect.  But  the  design  is  to  make  a  perfect  "  revelation  of  the  right- 
eous judgment  of  God  "  in  the  case  of  each  of  all  the  myriads  of 
mankind  and  of  angels  gathered  before  Him.  By  this  revelation, 
all  the  "  numbers  without  number  "  will  perfectly  know  all  "  the 
secrets"  of  each  of  them,  as  well  as  his  works  and  whole  character, 
and  thus  precisely  why  he  is  judged  as  he  is,  whether  with  merciful 
and  gracious  acquital  through  Christ,  or  with  sentence  to  just,  retrib- 
utive, positive  punishment  according  to  his  deeds  done  in  the 
body.  Thus  the  absolute  righteousness  of  the  judgment  in  every 
one's  case  will  be  universally  known  and  vindicated.  It  will  not 
make  the  condemned  any  more  certain  of  their  destiny  than  they 
were  before,  but  it  will  openly  declare  it  and  the  reasons  for  it  before 
the  universal  public;  and  not  only  will  all  holy  beings  forever  per- 
fectly approve  it,  but  every  wicked  being  will  certainly  do  the  same 
in  the  case  of  all  others  than  himself  at  least,  and  doubtless  in  his 
own.  After  this  eternal,  unalterable  judgment,  not  a  mouth  can 
ever  accuse  the  justice  of  God.  But  now,  if  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  sin,  which  are  purely  personal  and  independent  of  any 
such  judicial  judgment  and  its  execution  by  our  Lord,  are  its  only 
so-called  punishment,  nothing  of  all  this  can  be  true.  It  is  all 
excluded  by  this  individually  constitutional,  naturalistic,  self-operat- 
ing process,  which  leaves  neither  place,  use,  nor  reason  for  any 
judgment,  much  less  a  universal  one,  such  as  the  Scriptural,  social, 
administrative  one  demanded  by  the  justice  of  the  law,  the  whole 
constitution  of  the  moral  system,  the  Divine  character  of  righteous- 
ness, and  the  rights,  interests,  and  concerns  of  God  and  all  good 
beings,  and,  in  a  sense,  even  of  bad  ones.  How  could  a  judgment 
for  such  a  revelation  consist  with  this  theory? 

§  40.  FEARFULLY  DAMAGES  THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD  AS  RULER  AND  AS 

A  MORAL  BEING. 

10.  The  last  objection  I  now  urge  against  this  theory  is  that  it 
works  fearful  damage  to  the  conception  of  the  love  of  God.  Its 
adopters,  instead  of  recognizing  that  the  love  required  by  the  law  is 


64  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

moral  and  just,  and  must  fundamentally  consist  in  intelligent  action 
of  the  will,  in  its  radical  choice  of  the  end  of  the  law,  in  pure  good- 
will to  God  and  fellow  natures,  assume  it  to  be  essentially  emotional, 
a  merely  sympathetic,  sentimental  affection,  feeling,  or  state  of  the 
sensibility,  and  they  never  attempt  to  define  or  discriminate  it.  But 
such  love  may  or  may  not  be  connected  with  a  will  in  liarmony  with 
the  law.  All  merely  emotional,  natural  love  is  as  blind  as  the 
mythical  Cupid,  and,  in  itself,  is  as  void  of  moral  quality  and  dis- 
crimination. It  matters  not  whether  it  flows  towards  its  objects  in 
steady  streams  or  paroxysmal  gushes,  it  does  not  flow  to  them 
according  to  their  moral  character  and  deserts,  good  or  bad,  nor 
according  to  their  consequent  relations  to  God  and  the  universal 
society,  which  demand  positive  social  retributions  of  reward  and 
punishment,  but  to  them  only  as  creatures  susceptible  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  happiness  and  misery,  as  sentient  rather  than  moral  and 
accountable  natures.  With  slight  or  no  recognition  of  the  sin,  crime, 
or  wickedness  its  objects  are  guilty  of,  or  of  what  they  deserve  from 
and  owe  to  God  and  the  universal  society  of  retributive  suffering,  it 
expends  itself  upon  these  objects  simply  as  suffering  or  liable  to 
suffer  the  retributive  punishment  they  deserve.  Such  is  the  love 
ascribed  to  God  by  the  advocates  of  this  theory  of  only  natural, 
consequential  retributions.  They  assume  that  it  would  be,  not  only 
inconsistent  with  His  love  to  inflict  positive  ones,  but  wrong  and 
even  cruel,  doing  what  he  has  really  no  right  to  do,  and  what  He 
would  deserve  the  condemnation  of  his  intelligent  creatures  for 
doing!  They  thus  found  morality  and  theology,  not  on  practical 
reason,  conscience,  will,  and  Scripture,  but  on  the  sensibility.  But, 
if  God  cannot  justly  inflict  positive  punishment  upon  sinners,  by  the 
same  principle  the  natural  consequences  of  obedience  must  be  its 
only  deserved  and  proper  reward,  so  that  he  cannot  confer  2i  positive 
one  on  the  obedient.  It  is  arbitrary  to  maintain  that  God  is  required 
by  the  law  to  be  a  positive  rewarder  of  the  obedient,  but  forbidden 
by  it  to  be  a  positive  punisher  of  the  disobedient.  If  the  law,  or 
properly  moral  nature,  is  autoinaiic  in  the  case  of  transgressors,  why 
not  in  that  of  obeyers  as  well?  Conscience  attests  the  one  as  posi-  • 
tively  as  the  other.  If  men  deny  positive  punishment,  they  must 
equally  positive  reward;  and  as  God  can  have  no  moral  govern- 
ment, nor  moral  system,  pure  naturalism  alone  remains,  and  He  is  a 
mere  cipher!  But  the  fact  is,  that,  if  this  theory  were  true,  there 
could  be  no  desert  at  all  of  either  reward  or  punishment  by  either 
obedience  or  sin. 


DAMAGES  THE  CHARACTER  OF  GOD.  65 

But  there  is  more  inconsistency  in  this  notion.  Its  advocates 
reject  the  doctrine  that  God  will  inflict  positive  punishment  on 
incorrigible  sinners,  because  He  is  love,  and  inflicting  it  would  be 
inconsistent  with  love.  When  met  with  the  objection,  that,  accord- 
ing to  this,  His  love  excludes  Him  from  having  any  moral  govern- 
ment, any  justice,  any  real  regard  for  His  law  in  and  from  His  own 
and  every  other  moral  nature,  and  so  for  that  nature  and  its  good 
in  any  being,  even  if  obedient,  so  that  He  must  be  utterly  indifferent 
between  obedience  and  its  natural  consequences  and  sin  and  its 
natural  consequences,  and  therefore  the  contrary  of  just  and  benev- 
olent, they  turn  round  and  say — "Oh  no;  He  does  really  inflict 
these  consequences  of  sin  on  sinners  as  punishments,  because,  when 
He  made  them,  He  set  retributive  causes  in  their  nature  which  pro- 
duce these,  and  thus  constituted  them  so,  that,  if  they  should  sin, 
these  would  infallibly  follow.  He  therefore  as  really  causes  them 
as  if  He  should  directly  inflict  them."  A  sufficient  reply  is,  that,  if 
this  is  true,  and  these  consequences  are,  by  God's  creative  design  ami 
arrangement,  as  really  punishment  by  Him  as  direct  infliction  would 
be,  and  will  in  countless  cases  go  on  forever,  how  are  they  any 
more  consistent  with  His  love  in  any  sense  than  such  infliction?  or 
how  is  it  any  more  inconsistent  with  His  love  in  any  sense  than 
they?  If  these  are  two  modes  of  designed  punishment,  the  one  indirect 
or  mediate,  the  other  direct  or  immediate,  how  is  the  one  in  the  least 
either  more  or  less  consistent  or  inconsistent  with  God's  love  than 
the  other?  But  we  deny  the  position.  We  deny  that  God  could 
have  constituted  moral  natures  so  that  they  could  act  morally 
without  essentially  just  such  consequences  of  each  kind  of  action, 
and  of  course  that  He  set  any  retributive  causes  whatever  in  them 
for  the  purpose  of  producing  these.  As  if  such  natures  could  be 
constituted  so  that  they  could  act  morally  without  this  progeny  of 
consequences,  and  God  must  therefore  add  to  them  automatic  retrib- 
utive causes  to  produce  it!  But  the  truth  is,  that  a  being  who  could 
act  morally  without  it  is  inconceivable.  He  would  lack  conscience 
and  the  sensibility  connected  with  it,  the  law  of  habit  as  operating 
with  moral  action,  and  who  can  tell  what  besides? 

But  what  a  strange  love  this  is,  which  is  generally  imputed  to 
God  by  the  advocates  of  this  notion.  According  to  it,  whether 
moral  beings  obey  the  law  or  not,  render  to  God  and  each  other  the 
love  due  by  it  or  not,  wrong  and  injure  Him  and  each  other  or  not — 
whether  the  influences  and  tendencies  they  have  started  to  go  on 
forever  have  been  good  or  bad — whether  they  and  others  through 


66  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

them  have  experienced  the  happy  natural  consequences  of  obedience 
or  the  unhappy  ones  of  disobedience — whether  they  have  rendered 
the  existence  of  themselves  and  others  an  immortal  blessing  and 
glory  or  an  immortal  curse  and  shame — whether  they  have  regarded 
and  promoted  God's  pleasure  and  glory  or  scorned  and  outraged 
them — whether  they  are  angels  or  devils — yet  such  is  His  love,  that, 
although  moral  reason  and  conscience,  fundamental  in  the  nature 
he  gave  them,  attest  that  they  deserve  and  will  receive  retributive 
treatment  from  Him  according  to  their  works  and  character,  He 
will  not  inflict  that  treatment  on  the  evil,  but  will  leave  the  natural 
consequences  of  sin  and  crime,  however  enormous,  and  these  abated 
by  Him  as  much  as  possible,  to  be  their  only  punishment!  More 
still;  to  give  this  love  full  scope  towards  human  sinners,  including 
the  very  worst,  though  a  vast  proportion  of  them  may  have  lived 
under  the  Gospel  and  persistently  rejected  its  offers  of  mercy  and 
grace,  many  adherents  of  this  notion  maintain  that  they  will  have  a 
new  probation  indefinitely  prolonged  after  death!  God  will  not, 
must  not  inflict  retributive  punishment  upon  even  the  worst,  because 
love  not  only  forbids,  but  demands  that  He  shall  enter  Himself  into 
their  evil  condition  and  woes,  the  natural  consequences  of  their 
persistent  wickedness,  with  infinite  sympathy  and  ceaseless  endeavor 
to  relieve,  help,  and  restore  them!  Love!  It  would  be  utterly 
immoral,  an  outrage  on  the  universal,  loyal  society  forever  by 
trampling  down  all  justice,  all  real  moral  love,  all  conscience  and 
moral  nature,  the  law  and  government  of  God;  and  the  order  and 
welfare  of  His  everlasting  empire.  It  would  debar  Him  from  all 
activity  against  the  evil  in  favor  of  the  good,  and  reduce  Him  to  a 
moral  neuter,  neither  administering,  nor  concerning  Himself  about 
a  moral  system;  and  it  would  license  and  invite  universal  sin  and 
all  vice  and  crime  to  revel  and  rage  at  will  forevermore. 

The  natural  consequences  of  sin  its  only  retributions,  and  an 
indefinite  future  probation  for  sinners — these  dogmas  are  the  legiti- 
mate logical  offspring  of  this  spurious  notion  of  God's  love,  and 
among  the  chief  articles  of  the  creed  of  many  in  our  times.  The 
former  of  them  has  been  considered  in  the  preceding  pages,  and  will 
subsequently  be  considered  further.  The  latter  will  be  somewhat 
examined  in  Chapter  VII. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Butler's  position,  that  God  has  a  natural  government  besides  His 
moral  examined  and  rejected;  also  positio?is  ofBushnell. 

§  41.   DISAGREEMENT  WITH  BUTLER'S  POSITION  RESPECTING  A  NATURAL 
GOVERNMENT  OF  GOD. 

We  are  aware  that  what  we  have  maintained  in  the  two  Chapters 
preceding  is  in  collision  with  the  position  of  Butler  in  his  great 
masterpiece,*  that  the  natural  consequences  of  men's  actions  in 
this  life  are  natural  rewards  and  punishments  by  God,  so  that  He 
has  a  natural  government  over  "  His  creatures  endued  with  sense 
and  reason,"  and  is  a  "Natural  Governor."  He  says — "We  are  at 
present  actually  under  His  government  in  the  strictest  and  most 
proper  sense" — that  "we  are  under  it  in  the  same  sense  as  we  are 
under  the  government  of  civil  magistrates" — that  "the  particular 
final  causes  of  pleasure  and  pain  distributed  amongst  His  creatures 
prove  that  they  are  under  His  government,  what  may  be  called  His 
natural  government  of  creatures  endued  with  sense  and  reason," 
which,  he  says,  "implies  government  of  the  very  same  kind  with  that 
which  a  master  exercises  over  his  servants,  or  a  civil  magistrate  over 
his  subjects."  The  government  he  means  in  each  of  these  places  is  a 
natural,  as  opposed  to  a  positive,  moral  one,  as  his  whole  argument, 
carried  on  in  Chapter  IH.,  makes  certain.  Chalmers,  in  his  Lectures 
on  Butler,  endorsed  this  position,  as  many  others  have  done;  but, 
for  all  the  reasons  we  have  shown  in  the  two  previous  chapters,  and 
will  show  in  this,  we  are  compelled  to  reject  it.  Our  main  reasons 
for  canvassing  it  here  are  two — one,  to  forestall  objectors  to  ours 
from  adducing  it  and  the  weight  of  his  great  authority  in  opposition; 
and  the  other  to  evince  the  validity  of  ^  ours,  even  though  inhar- 
monious with  his. 


(*)  Analogy,  Part  I.,  Chap.  II.,  and  other  places. 


68  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

In  no  proper  sense  can  God  have  two  governments  over  men 
or  moral  beings — one  natural,  or  non-moral,  the  other  moral.  Since 
He  has  but  one  moral  law,  which  enjoins  all  action  that  is  or  can  be 
moral,  the  sanctions  of  which,  as  we  have  shown,  are  not  natural,  but 
moral,  as  this  great  author  correctly  holds;  and,  since  God's  gov- 
ernment entirely  consists  in  declaring  and  administering  this  eternal 
law,  His  natural  government,  if  He  had  one,  could  in  no  sense  be 
moral  or  have  a  moral  quality.  Of  course,  there  could  be  no  essen- 
tial likeness,  and  so  no  afiahgy,  between  the  moral  and  it.  It  cer- 
tainly could  be  no  part  of  His  function  as  a  Ruler  of  moral  beings 
to  create  them,  nor,  as  their  Creator  to  rule  them;  for  ruling  differs 
totally  from  creating,  and  can  only  begin  when  that  is  ended.  As 
therefore  the  so-called  natural  government  of  God  consists  entirely 
in  their  natures,  in  their  natural  affirmations  of  the  law  and  obliga- 
tion, and  in  the  natural  effects  to  each  of  them  of  his  moral  action, 
it  is  really  no  government  at  all.  The  case  of  God  Himself  is  an 
illustration.  He  is  absolutely  perfect  in  goodness,  and  has  all  the 
natural  consequences  of  being  so.  If  He  should  become  unright- 
eous, instead  of  these.  He  would  have  those  of  that  character.  Does 
the  one,  or  would  the  other,  of  these  classes  of  consequences  furnish 
a  shadow  of  proof  or  evidence  that,  in  any  normal  sense.  He  has  a 
natural  government  in  Him  of  any  other  being  who  constituted  Him 
or  of  any  kind?  No;  the  one  does,  and  the  other  would,  only  prove 
His  eternal  essence  or  being  such,  that,  without  any  agency  of  any 
other  being,  it  necessarily  produces  each  class  of  them  as  it  is 
affected  by  each  kind  of  moral  action. 

§  42.    NO  RETRIBUTIVE    CAUSES  SET  IN  MORAL   NATURES,  AS  BUSHNELL 

HOLDS. 

Precisely  the  same  is  the  case  with  all  moral  natures.  "  God 
created  them  in  His  own  image  and  after  His  own  likeness,"  rational 
miniatures  of  Himself,  and  therefore  susceptible  of  the  very  same 
kind  of  natural  consequences  of  moral  action  which  He  is.  Those 
of  their  action  are  just  as  entirely  from  their  nature,  and  uncaused 
by  any  government  of  His,  as  those  of  His  action  are  from  His 
nature  without  any  other  cause.  What  Dr.  Bushnell  says  of  "retrib- 
utive causes  set  in  moral  natures  " — that  is,  by  God  in  creating 
them — has  no  valid  basis;  for  no  such  causes  are  set  or  exist  in 
created  moral  natures  more  than  in  God's;  and  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  moral  action  are  not  retributive,  just  because,  as  we  are 
showing,  they  are  not  social  and  are  not  administered  by  God  gov- 


<VO  RETRIBUTIVE  CAUSES' SET  IM  MORAL  NATURES.       69 

ernmentally  or  at  all.  The  qualities  of  moral  natures,  which  he  calls 
such  causes,  are  merely  such  as  essentially  belong  to  them,  and 
without  which  they,  whether  creatures  or  Creator,  could  not  be  such 
natures;  for  they  are  in  them  and  Him  alike.  Who  can  know  or 
conceive  of  moral  beings  created  and  existing  without  moral  reason 
and  sensibility,  which,  separate,  or  in  the  wondrous  combination  of 
conscience,  that  very  center  of  the  moral  nature,  are  so  affected  by 
their  moral  action  as  to  produce  nearly  all,  and  the  worst  of  these 
consequences?  Lacking  these,  they  could  have  no  self-approvals 
nor  self-condemnations;  no  intuitional  affirmations  of  desert  of 
praise  or  blame,  and  of  reward  or  punishment  from  God  or  fellow-* 
beings;  no  experienced  peace  with  God,  nor  sense  of  guilt;  no  guilty 
fear,  remorse,  shame,  self-loathing,  despair,  callousness  of  the  sensi- 
bility of  conscience,  blinding  of  reason's  moral  eye,  loss  of  moral 
taste,  or  other  kindred  effects.  What  semblace  of  a  moral  nature 
would  that  be,  which  lacked  all  such  consequences  of  its  action,  and, 
of  course,  all  the  intrinsic  qualities  or  attributes  which  produce 
them?  Then,  how  could  such  a  being  exist  without  that  other  won- 
drous attribute,  which  constitutes  the  law  of  habit,  and  is  the  basis 
of  all  education,  skill,  or  increasing  tendency  to  any  kind  of  action, 
whether  of  the  will  or  of  any  other  faculty  of  the  mind  ?  It  is  by  it 
that  moral  beings  grow  more  and  more  bent  to  repeat  or  continue 
moral  action,  right  or  wrong,  generic  or  special,  and  increasingly 
receptive  of  these  consequences  of  one  kind  or  the  other.  Without 
this  law,  there  could  be  no  such  tendency  in  them  more  than  in  a 
ball  which  has  been  shot,  struck,  or  thrown,  and  has  come  to  rest, 
to  rise  and  fly  again,  or,  not  having  stopped,  to  go  on  forever  with 
increasing  speed.  To  form  moral  character  would  be  impossible, 
as  there  would  be  no  connecting  link  between  any  action  and  others 
before  or  after  it.  One  might  strike  or  thrum  the  keys  or  chords  of 
a  musical  instrument  for  a  lifetime,  and  acquire  no  more  skill  by  the 
practice  than  by  the  first  stroke  or  trial — that  is,  no  musical  char- 
acter; and  no  more  could  one  acquire  a  moral  character  by  a  suc- 
cession of  actions  or  choices,  right  or  wrong,  however  extended. 
Then,  memory  and  the  faculty  of  association  are  so  involved  in  the 
habit-action  of  the  mind  and  necessary  to  the  knowledge  of  all  past 
action  of  the  will,  the  reason,  the  sensibility,  the  conscience,  and  to 
the  consciousness  of  even  personal  identity,  that,  without  them,  as 
well  as  all  these,  moral  beings  would  be  impossible.  In  short,  who 
can  tell  how  they  could  be  such,  if  a  single  attribute,  quality,  faculty, 
or  susceptibility  which  we  know  belongs  to  them,  as  such,  were  left 


70  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

out  of  them  ? — how  any  of  these  could  be  essentially  changed,  or 
others  essentially  different  could  be  added  to  them,  and  they  still 
remain  such?  The  plain  conclusion  is,  that  God  created  moral 
natures  in  His  own  image,  neither  setting  any  causes  or  qualities  in 
them  which  are  not  necessary  to  their  being  as  complete  in  intrinsic 
likeness  to  Him  as  possible  consistently  with  their  finiteness  and 
designed  subjection  to  His  government;  nor  leaving  out  of  them 
any  which  are  essential  to  their  being  as  like  Him  as  possible  con- 
sistently with  the  conditions  stated;  and  consequently  there  is  no 
government  of  God  or  of  any  other  being  in  their  nature  more  than 
.there  is  in  His,  or  possible  in  either  Him  or  them.  An  automatic 
law,  and  an  automatic  government  are  preposterous  conceits. 

§  43.    A  NATURAL    GOVERNMENT    OF    GOD    OVER    MORAL    BEINGS    A  NAT- 
URAL   IMPOSSIBILITY. 

In  view  of  all  presented,  and  of  the  whole  nature  of  the  case, 
we  hold  it  among  the  certainties,  that,  in  any  true  sense  of  the  term, 
such  a  government  is  a  natural  impossibility.  No  nature  could  be 
created  so  as  to  be  or  to  contain  one;  for  there  is  and  can  be  no  real 
one  which  has  not  been  voluntarily  designed  and  originated,  which 
is  not  administered  by  one  or  more  persons  over  others  subject  to 
it,  and  which,  therefore,  is  not  a  purely  social  institution,  consisting  of 
two  parties — the  one  the  governing,  the  other  the  governed.  A  moral 
nature  is  no  more  voluntary,  designing,  intelligent,  possessed  of 
authority,  or  administrative  of  government  or  its  sanctions,  in  expe- 
riencing the  natural  consequences  of  the  moral  action  of  its  will,  right 
or  wrong,  than  material  nature  is  in  its  various  changes  of  the  seasons 
and  of  all  its  phenomena,  from  the  most  genial  and  agreeable  to  the 
most  opposite,  of  tempests  and  cyclones,  volcanoes  and  earthquakes. 
In  the  Chapter  we  are  noticing,  Butler  shows  no  recognition  of  the 
radical  difference  between  the  natural  or  personal,  and  the  social, 
consequences  of  moral  action,  but  lumps  them  together  indiscrimi- 
nately, and  affirms  that  they  are  all  alike  "appointed  by  God,"  and 
are  "by  His  appointment."  But  the  social  are  not,  as  the  natural 
are,  in  and  from  the  natures  of  the  actors,  but  are  from  their  fellow- 
beings  to  or  upon  them  as  returns  for,  or  social  results  of,  their 
manifested  character  and  their  conduct.  We  hold  that  they  are  not 
retributions  from  God  any  more  than  natural  experiences  of  any  kind 
are,  and  that  they  are  not  "  appointed  "  or  "  by  appointment  of  God  " 
in  any  other  sense  than  simply  that  He  created  and  constituted  all 
of  them  social-moral  natures  in  His  own  image,  as  we  have  already 


MERE  PRUDENCE  NOT  MORAL.  71 

shown.  They  existing  and  acting  morally  in  their  relations,  all  these 
consequences  follow,  of  course,  without  any  other  appointment  of 
God  than  His  creating  them  such  beings,  and  the  terms  "  appointed  " 
and  "appointment"  have  no  proper  application  to  them.  Not  only 
do  we  reject  the  notion  of  a  natural  government  of  God  as  intrin- 
sically impossible,  a  thing  of  construction  only,  but  we  hold  that, 
if  there  were  one,  there  could  be  no  essential  analogy  between  it 
and  His  moral  government  on  account  of  both  the  radical  and  the 
specific  dissimilarities  between  them,  which  have  been  more  than 
sufficiently  shown  in  Chapters  HI.  and  IV.,  and  in  this  one.  There 
is,  to  be  sure,  an  analogy  between  every  created  moral  nature  and 
God's;  between  its  normal  moral  action  and  His;  and  between  the 
natural  consequences  of  such  action  to  it  and  to  Him;  but  neither 
its  nature,  per  se,  nor  His  is,  in  any  sense,  moral  government  or  its 
administration  over  any  actor  or  others;  and  therefore  no  natural 
consequences  of  either  its  or  His  moral  action  can  be  governmental. 
If  a  nature  is  not  a  government,  how  can  the  necessary  natural  con- 
sequences of  moral  action  be  governmental?  If  told  that  God,  in 
creating  moral  natures,  set  retributive  causes  in  them,  as  Bushnell 
says,  or  annexed  and  appointed  them  to  them,  as  Butler  says,  we 
have  abundantly  shown  the  groundlessness  and  intrinsic  absurdity 
of  this  say  of  the  latter  in  showing  them  of  that  of  the  former,  as 
they  mean  the  same.  Only  our  allegiance,  like  Butler's,  to  "the 
rights  of  truth"  and  loyally  to  God  and  the  interests  of  man  could 
impel  us  thus  to  express  disagreement  with  this  masterful  author  on 
this  point,  that  God  has  two  governments,  one  natural,  the  other 
moral,  over  mankind,  and,  by  implication,  over  all  moral  beings. 
The  same  allegiance  and  loyalty  impel  us  to  notice  his  positions 
some  further. 

§  44.    WHAT    NECESSARY    TO    CONSTRUCT    SUCH    A    GOVERNMENT;    AND 
MERE    PRUDENCE    NOT    MORAL. 

In  order  to  construct  a  natural  government  of  God  over  man- 
kind, he  found  it  necessary  to  do  three  things — i.  To  confine  it,  or 
attention  to  it,  to  them  in  this  life — 2.  To  find  or  invent  for  it  a  kind 
oi  quasi  \d.\N,  different  from  the  law  of  God's  everlasting  moral  gov- 
ernment, yet  somehow  obligatory — 3.  To  make  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  obeying  it  or  not  its  sanctions,  or  only  retributions. 
His  construction  was  a  misconstruction,  because  it  was  built,  not 
on  psycological  facts  respecting  "the  constitution  and  course  of 
nature,"  but  on  assumptions  concerning  these  and  other  supposed 


72  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

ones,  not  real.  We  think  we  have  abundantly  shown  that  these 
consequences  cannot  be  the  sanctions  or  retributions  of  the  law, 
nor  any  part  of  them;  and  they  surely  cannot  of  any  other  supposed 
law,  when  no  other  is  possible.  He  speaks  of  "prudence"  as  if 
another;  but  is  it?  It  is  far  from  always  having  moral  quality, 
being  often  used  about  courses  or  ways  of  acting  to  secure  ends 
which  have  no  relish  in  them  of  either  moral  or  immoral,  and  yet 
have  or  may  have  consequences  of  even  great  pleasure  or  pain 
coupled  to  them.  But,  when  it  is  moral,  it  is  moral  wisdom,  and, 
like  all  other  specific  virtues,  is  required  by  an  application  of  the 
law,  and  is  executive  of  its  radical  requirement  of  supreme  love  to 
God  and  equal  love  to  man  in  a  special  relation.  It  consists  in 
choosing  and  using  ways  or  means  which  we  judge  best  to  achieve 
or  secure  the  best  attainable  ends;  and  its  opposite  is  moral  folly, 
which  consists  in  disregarding  such  ends  and  such  ways  and  means, 
and  in  choosing  and  using  their  contraries.  Moral  prudence,  then, 
is  simply  obedience  to  a  specific  application  of  the  one  only  law, 
and  moral  folly  is  violating  one;  and  while  they  have,  of  course, 
both  natural  and  social  consequences  to  their  actors,  which  are  not 
governmental,  they  deserve  and  must  receive,  to  the  measure  of  the 
desert,  from  God,  as  administrator  of  His  own  social-moral  law, 
just  reward  or  punishment,  as  conscience  and  Scripture  assert  and 
the  universal  moral  system  constituted  by  the  law  in  moral  natures 
absolutely  demands. 

§45.    GOD  HAS  ONLY  ONE   GOVERNMENT,  AND   ITS    GENERAL    RETRIBU- 
TIONS FOLLOW  THIS  LIFE  OF  PROBATION. 

For  all  the  reasons  preceding,  and  some  others,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  reject  the  notion  of  a  natural  government  of  God  over 
mankind  as  a  thing  of  mere  construction,  intrinsically  impossible,  and 
neither  of,  nor  according  to,  "  the  constitution  and  course  of  nature." 
God  can  have  but  one  government  over  moral  beings,  and  that 
necessarily  a  moral  one,  as  there  is  but  one  law  in  and  from  the 
moral  reason  in  Himself  and  in  them,  the  sanctions  of  which,  as 
both  conscience  and  Scripture  declare,  are  positive  retributions  to 
be  administered  by  Him;  and  besides  these,  there  can  be  no  others. 
As  far  as  mankind  are  concerned,  all  moral  agents  of  them  are  on  a 
gracious  probation  or  trial  during  their  responsible  life,  as  to 
whether  they  will  or  will  not  yield  themselves  to  His  will  as  made 
known  to  them,  in  order  that  He  may  save  all  who  will  so  yield 
from  the  punitive  retribution  they  deserve;  and,  of  course.  He  can  in 


ONLY  ONE  GOVERNMENT. 


73 


no  case  consistently  execute  this  retribution  before  death,  or  till  the  pro- 
bation is  ended.  But  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  are  occurring 
all  through  it,  and  therefore  are  not  this  retribution,  nor  of  it,  neither 
in  this  life  nor  in  that  which  is  to  come.  Accordingly,  conscience, 
like  Scripture,  always  points  to  retributions  as  to  be  awarded  by 
God  after  death,  but  never  to  the  natural  consequences  of  moral 
action  as  either  constituting  or  of  them  in  this  world  or  the  next. 
But,  in  this  probational  life,  God,  as  moral  Governor,  providentially 
mingles  with  "the  riches  of  His  goodness  and  forbearance  and  long- 
suffering  to  lead  men  to  repentance"  disciplinary  dispensations  of 
all  kinds  and  severities  in  the  cups  of  persons,  families,  commun- 
ities, states,  nations,  races,  and  generations;  and  all  normally 
acting  conscience  ever  attests  Him  in  all  His  interventions  of  mercy 
or  judgment  as  manifesting  His  sovereign  sway  over  the  human 
world.  Yes,  "we  are  at  present  actually  under  His  government  in 
the  strictest  and  most  proper  sense" — "in  the  same  [positive]  sense 
in  which  we  are  under  the  government  of  civil  magistrates" — not  a 
fictitious  natural  one,  which  is  impossible,  but  a  real  moral  one, 
which  is  the  only  one  possible  for  Him  on  earth,  in  heaven,  or  in 
any  world  of  rational  beings. 

"The  constitution  and  course  of  nature"  are  identical  with 
moral  nature  and  its  operations  and  experiences  from  its  moral 
action,  apart  from  any  Divinely  administered  governmental  retri- 
butions; and  the  whole  preceding  part  of  this  work  is  mainly  an 
exposition  of  this  nature  and  these  operations  and  experiences.  It 
would  not  be  pertinent  to  our  present  purpose  to  trace  out  and 
exhibit  the  analogy  between  this  nature  and  the  natural  and  social 
consequences  to  it  in  this  life  of  its  moral  action,  and  God's  universal 
moral  government  with  its  sanctions  of  reward  and  punishment  to 
be  administered  by  Him  after  this  life,  according  to  the  Scriptural 
revelation.  Although  it  would  vary  in  no  essential  respect  from  that 
of  this  inestimable  author,  it  would,  we  think,  have  a  decided 
advantage  over  it  for  sweeping  away  all  assumed  grounds  of  objec- 
tion to  a  universal  moral  system  and  the  necessary  requisite  of  a 
universal  moral  government  for  its  maintenance,  and  to  the  redemp- 
tive measure  and  system.  Every  competent  one,  so  disposed,  can 
trace  it  out  for  himself  and  others;  and  we  thus  arrest  consideration 
of  this  great  author's  Chapter  referred  to  in  his  imperishable  Analogy. 
We  only  add  that  those,  in  our  times,  who  hold  that  God  has  only  a 
natural  government  over  mankind,  are  no  more  accordant  with 
Butler  than  with  psycology  and  Scripture,  and  must  logically  reject 


74  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

not  only  his  Analogy,  but  the  possibility  of  a  universal  moral 
system.  They  must  deny  the  existence  of  the  law  itself  in  all  moral 
natures,  which,  putting  them  all  alike  under  its  clamping  reciprocal 
obligations,  responsibilities,  accountabilities,  influences,  and  actions, 
necessarily  constitutes  them  into  a  universal  moral  society  and 
system;  or  they  must  deny  its  real  character  as  social-moral,  and 
therefore  intrinsically  just,  both  ethically  and  retributively;  and, 
with  these  denials,  they  must  deny  the  whole  social-moral  nature 
and  character  of  God,  making  Him  in  no  sense  just  or  wishing  to 
maintain  a  universal  society  and  system. 

§  46.    WHAT    THIS    CRUDE    NATURALISM    MAKES    GOD,    IF  A  MORAL    GOV- 
ERNMENT AND  RETRIBUTIONS  ARE  DENIED. 

Thus  this  crude  naturalism  makes  God  a  care-nothing,  do-noth- 
ing spectator  of  the  universe  of  moral  beings,  palpably  created  by 
Him  to  be  a  universal  moral  society  or  system,  He  being,  by  the 
nature  and  the  moral  necessity  and  obligation  of  the  case,  both  in 
it  and  its  Ruler,  yet  left  by  Him  without  the  government  absolutely 
demanded  by  the  social-moral  nature  of  the  system;  without  the 
momentous  motives  of  its  sanctions  while  on  probation,  and  the 
justice,  both  ethical  and  retributive,  of  their  administration  at  its 
close;  thus  not  only  without  any  evidence  that  He  is  either  just  or 
benevolent  towards  them,  but  with  demonstration  that  He  is  neither 
in  this  supreme  relation  to  them;  hence,  not  only  without  any  reason 
why  they  should  love,  regard,  or  care  for  Him  any  more  than  He  does 
for  them,  but  with  supreme  reasons  why  they  should  not;  and  thus 
without  any  real  ground  of  religion,  or  for  concern  about  it,  as  God 
is  indifferent  and  they  all  unaccountable  to  Him.  However  men 
may  veneer  or  sugar  over  this  desecrating  conception  of  the  char- 
acter of  God  with  the  fancied  or  figured  notion  of  His  natural 
fatherhood  to  mankind,  versus  His  governorship,  is  it  one  to  enamor 
or  to  revolt,  to  delight  or  to  appall  us?  There  is  no  conflict  between 
the  fact  that  sin  has  noxious  natural  consequences,  and  the  fact  that 
it  has  also  governmental  consequences;  and  to  deny  the  latter, 
despite  all  the  Scriptural  teachings  referred  to  in  the  preceding 
Chapter,  all  the  attestations  of  conscience,  and  all  the  facts  and 
.invincible  reasons  we  have  shown  vv^hy  God  must  have  a  moral 
government,  as  the  moral  system  founded  in  all  moral  natures 
demands,  and  to  assert  the  former  as  the  only  ones,  if  God  is  love, 
is  not  only  mere  naturalism  of  the  grossest  grade,  obnoxious  to  all 
the   objections  we  have   advanced   a;,ainst  it,  but  is   impliedly  to 


A  MORAL  GOVERNMENT, 


75 


assume  that  He  cannot  be  trusted  to  administer  a  real  moral  gov- 
ernment over  moral  beings  for  fear  He  will  abuse  His  power  and 
act  the  tyrant  in  inflicting  upon  incorrigible  sinners  the  poaitive 
retributions  they  deserve! 

§  47,    GOD    INFINITELY    BOUND    TO    HAVE    A    MORAL    GOVERNMENT,    AND 
WHAT,  IF  HE  HAS  NOT. 

Such  is  this  mock-moral,  mechanical,  naturalistic,  anti-psyco- 
logical,  as  well  as  anti-scriptural  notion;  and,  in  opposition  to  it 
and  all  its  implications,  we  maintain  that,  as  the  Author  and  natural 
Guardian  of  mankind  and  all  created  moral  beings,  God  must  be 
infinitely  bound  by  the  mandate  of  His  own  moral  reason  and  the 
decisions  of  His  own  conscience,  echoed  by  theirs  universally,  to 
have  and  to  administer  a  social-moral  government  with  its  positive 
sanctions  over  them  all,  and  in  it  to  make  the  motives  against  sin 
and  to  obedience  just  as  great  and  influential  as  possible.  That  is, 
He  must  make  the  punitive  retributions  of  sin  exactly  equal  in  every 
case  to  the  actual  measure  of  ill-desert;  and,  while  He  may  gra- 
ciously go  indefinitely  beyond  the  good-desert  of  any  in  rewarding 
and  blessing  the  obedient,  He  must,  in  every  case,  equal  it.  Moral 
beings  cannot  act  morally,  except  under  motives;  and  the  declared 
sanctions  of  the  law  are  its  only  motives,  besides  the  intrinsic 
impulsion  of  its  precept,  to  secure  obedience  and  to  restrain  from 
disobedience  to  it.  Of  course,  there  are  other  motives  in  all  God's 
manifestations  of  beneficence  and  all  goodness,  made  to  all  His 
creatures,  and  of  mercy  and  grace  in  the  Gospel,  made  to  all  of  man- 
kind to  whom  it  comes,  along  with  its  fuller  and  clearer  annouce- 
ments  of  the  law's  sanctions.  But  these  announcements  are  all 
sanctions  of  the  law  as  it  applies  to  mankind  under  the  Gospel. 
Now,  if  God  had  not  connected  and  would  not  administer  all  its 
sanctions,  as  both  conscience  and  the  Bible  announce  them.  He 
would  not  even  approach  doing  all  He  could  and  ought  to  do  to 
prevent  sin  with  all  its  dire  progeny  of  natural  and  social  conse- 
quences to  its  actor,  and  all  its  terrible  tendencies  and  power  of 
propagation,  and  to  secure  obedience  with  all  its  benign  natural 
and  other  consequences  to  its  actor,  and  its  tendencies  and  power 
of  propagation,  and  to  benefit  and  bless  others  forever — that  is,  to 
conserve  His  rational  creatures  from  ruining  themselves  and  each 
other,  and  to  conduct  them  to  endless  perfection,  blessedness,  and 
glory.  How,  then,  can  He,  according  to  this  mechanical  notion,  be 
a  just,  benevolent,  good  Being?     How,  not  indifferent  to  the  moral 


76  THE  MORAL  LAW  Ah'D  SYSTEM. 

action  and  character  and  the  welfare  of  the  moral  beings  He  has 
created?  If,  to  escape  these  logical  results,  the  reply  is  given — "Oh, 
He  is  a  Father!"  the  matter  is  neither  evaded  nor  improved  by  it; 
for  we  ask  what  kind  of  a  Father  He  is,  or  can  be,  if  He  leaves  His 
children,  during  their  whole  probation,  unescapably  subject  to  all 
the  temptations  in  and  around  them,  with  motives  utterly  inade- 
quate to  counterpoise  these  and  to  avail  to  conserve  them  from 
personal  and  mutual  ruin  by  yielding  to  these?  and,  if  He  does  not, 
as  He  certainly  can  and  ought  to  do,  add  and  declare  others  just  as 
weighty  as  He  wisely  can? — if  He  does  not  declare,  and,  when  the 
time  comes,  execute,  in  positively  rewarding  the  obedient  and  pun- 
ishing the  disobedient,  all  that  the  social-moral  justice  of  the  law 
requires?  Is  He  a  good  Father,  or  the  contrary,  if  He  does  not 
maintain  a  real  moral  government  over  the  universal  and  eternal 
society  of  His  children  with  sanctions  as  weighty  as  the  justice  of 
the  law  and  the  holy  love  it  guards  demand,  that  is,  as  they  can  be? 
A  wonderfully  good  Father,  indeed,  would  He  be!  No;  if  good,  He 
must  treat  each  of  the  universe  of  His  so-called  children  precisely 
as  his  social-moral  relations,  responsibilities,  character,  and  deserts, 
and  as  the  natural  and  moral  rights,  interests,  and  concerns  of  all 
others  and  of  Himself  in  the  whole  eternal  moral  system  absolutely 
demand.  Ethical  justice  to  that  whole,  including  Himself,  does 
demand  positive  rewards  from  Him  to  every  obedient  one  accord- 
ing to  his  actual  good  desert  at  the  end  of  his  probation,  as  He  sees 
it,  and  positive  retributive  punishment  to  every  sinner  according  to 
his  actual  ill-desert  at  that  time,  as  He  sees  it.  To  deny  this  is  to 
deny  that  it  is  an  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law,  and  thus  that  it  prop- 
erly exists;  hence,  that  the  law  is  social-moral;  hence,  that  all  moral 
beings  are  necessarily  in  an  eternal  moral  system  with  God,  who  is 
its  Ruler;  hence,  to  be  consistent,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  mor- 
ality, other  than  merely  conventional;  hence,  that  moral  beings 
have  natural,  and,  if  well-deserving,  also  moral  rights,  which  they 
are  mutually  bound  by  obligations  of  justice  to  respect  by  a  reci- 
procity of  love  and  its  special  activities;  and  hence,  that  there  is  any 
real  obligation  on  God  or  any  other  being  to  exercise  this  love  to 
others  of  any  kind.  Then,  if  there  is  no  demand  of  justice  in  the 
law  for  the  retributive  punishment  of  sinners  by  God  according  to 
their  real  deserts,  and  they  are  not  exposed  to  it,  an  atonement  is, 
of  course,  impossible,  and,  as  we  have  before  said,  there  can  be  no 
such  thing  as  pardon,  forgiveness,  remission  of  sins,  or  justification, 
nor  as  mercy  and  grace  in  God  in  not  inflicting  that  punishment 


BUTLER,  MARTINEAU,  AND  ARNOLD.  77 

upon  them,  and  no  reason  whatever  why  they  should  seek,  pray,  or 
concern  themselves  about  escaping  it  or  securing  forgiveness.  Christ 
could  not  have  come  in  the  flesh,  that  men  "might  be  saved  from 
wrath  through  Him,"  as  they  were  never  in  danger  of  wrath.  Thus 
this  notion  is  a  dire  eclipse  on  God's  entire  moral  system,  on  the  law 
itself,  on  the  object  of  Christ's  mission  to  earth,  on  His  character,  on 
the  whole  measure  of  salvation,  on  the  love  of  God  in  it,  and  on  the 
full-orbed  glory  of  His  moral  perfections  and  character  as  displayed 
in  it  towards  guilty  man  on  the  one  side,  and  the  universal  and  eter- 
nal society  of  holy  beings  on  the  other.  It  is  indeed  "  another  Gos- 
pel, which  is  not  another,"  but  a  very  poor  travesty  of  the  real  one. 
We  add  no  more  in  proof  that  God  is  a  Moral  Governor;  for  what 
we  have  shown  demonstrates  it,  if  anything  in  Theism  and  ethical 
science  can  be  demonstrated.  It  is  only  to  express  an  analogy  between 
a  human  father  and  God  as  Creator,  to  call  Him  the  Father  of  man- 
kind, but  it  is  to  express  an  absolute  fact,  as  real  as  His  omnipotence 
or  any  other  attribute,  to  call  Him  the  Moral  Governor  or  Ruler  of 
mankind  and  all  other  rational  creatures;  for  He  is  "the  only  Poten- 
tate," "the  Lord  of  lords,  and  the  King  of  kings,"  "who  doeth 
according  to  His  will  in  the  army  of  heaven  and  among  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  earth:  and  none  can  stay  His  hand,  or  say  unto  Him, 
What  doest  thou?"  Human  rulers  are  such  by  right  only  as  they 
derive  authority  and  power  from  Him.*  The  monarchic  idea  is 
absolutely  realized  in  Him,  and  in  Him  alone.  The  rational  universe 
is  not  a  democracy,  with  universal  or  any  suffrage  by  an  infinite 
difference,  but  a  kingdom,  a  dominion,  a  monarchy,  of  which  God  is, 
and  eternally  will  be  the  one  never  changed  nor  changeable,  all-per- 
fect Ruler,  according  to  His  all-perfect,  all-binding  social-moral  law. 
Nor  can  the  Gospel  be  truly  preached,  as  it  is,  by  any  one  who  denies 
that  He  is  thus  universal  Ruler. 

§  48.    THREE    CITATIONS    RELATING   TO   POINTS   IN   THIS    CHAPTER,    FROM 
BUTLER,  MARTINEAU,  AND  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

We  ask  readers  to  observe,  that,  in  this  and  the  preceding  Chap- 
ters, we  have  shown  the  identity  of  our  positions  in  the  first  five  of 
this  work  with  the  teachings  of  Scripture  on  the  same  points.  This 
Chapter  will  close  with  a  few  citations,  relating  to  its  matter  in  dif- 
ferent ways,  without  extended  remarks  upon  them,  as  intelligent 
readers  will  readily  see  their  bearing. 

(*)  Piov.  8:15,  16;  Dan.  2:21;  4:25,  32,  35;   John  19:11;    Rom.  13:1-7;  I.  Pet. 
2:13,  14. 


78  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

I.  Noticing  the  questions,  why  God  does  not  make  His  rational 
creatures  hapj^y  without  the  instrumentality  of  their  own  actions, 
and  prevent  their  bringing  any  sufferings  upon  themselves,  Butler 
says — "Perhaps  there  may  be  some  impossibilities  in  the  nature  of 
things,  which  we  are  unacquainted  with.  Or  less  happiness,  it  may 
be,  would,  upon  the  whole,  be  produced  by  such  a  method  of  conduct, 
than  is  by  the  present.  Or  perhaps  divine  goodness,  with  which,  if  I 
mistake  not,  we  make  very  free  in  our  speculations,  may  not  be  a 
bare  single  disposition  to  produce  happiness;  but  a  disposition  to 
make  the  good,  the  faithful,  the  honest,  happy.  Perhaps  an  infinitely 
perfect  mind  may  be  pleased  with  seeing  His  creatures  behave  suit- 
ably to  the  nature  which  He  has  given  them;  to  the  relations  Avhich 
He  has  placed  them  in  to  each  other;  and  to  that  which  they  stand 
in  to  Himself:  that  relation  to  Himself,  which,  during  their  existence, 
is  even  necessary,  and  which  is  the  most  important  one  of  all:  per- 
haps, I  say,  an  infinitely  perfect  mind  may  be  pleased  with  this  moral 
piety  of  moral  agents,  in  and  for  itself;  as  well  as  upon  account  of 
its  being  essentially  conducive  to  the  happiness  of  His  creation.* 
We  cite  this  passage  for  the  deep  thought  of  those  who  hold  that 
benevolence  in  either  God  or  man  consists  in  a  "bare  single  dispo- 
sition to  produce  happiness,"  or  in  willing  it  to  every  one  alike  irre- 
spective in  his  character  and  deserts. 

2.  The  second  one  is  from  a  private  letter  of  Rev.  James  Mar- 
tineau  to  a  ministerial  friend  of  mine  who  had  written  him  for  his 
.view  of  retributive  sanctions  of  rewards  and  punishments.  This  he 
declined  to  enter  upon  the  discussion  of,  and  then  added — "I  will 
only  say  that,  so  far  as  my  observation  goes,  '  the  powers  of  the  world 
to  come'  over  the  conscience  and  affections  of  mankind  have  very 
little  to  do  with  the  direct  anticipation  of  'reward  or  punishment;' 
but  depend  rather  on  the  vast  enlargement  of  moral  relations  and 
intensified  sacredness  imparted  to  the  whole  contents  of  life  by  the 
belief  in  its  transcendent  scale  and  perpetuity.  Yours  faithfully, 
James  Martineau."  He  doubtless  intended  to  say  something  definite 
in  the  last  half  of  the  sentence,  but  who  can  tell  what?  His  apparent 
meaning  in  its  first  half  is,  that  the  facts  and  truths  of,  and  radically 
involved  in,  the  matter  of  the  Gospel  are  so  apart  from,  and  inde- 
pendent of,  retributive  sanctions  of  future  rewards  and  punishments, 
specially  declared  in  the  Gospel,  that  their  power  over  the  conscience 
and  affections  of  mankind  has  very  little  to  do  with  the  direct  antici- 
pation of  these  sanctions.     As  far  as  our  observation  goes,  the  direct 

i*\  Analncrv.  Part  I.,  Chap.  II.,  near  beginning. 


BUTLER,  MARTINEAU,  AND  ARNOLD.  79 

opposite  of  this  is  the  truth j  and  these  sanctions  denied  or  disbe- 
lieved leave  the  Gospel  an  imbecility,  for  the  existence  of  which 
there  is  no  adequate  reason,  and  the  characteristics  of  which  are 
mostly  abortive.     Discarding  them  is  discarding  the  moral  system. 

3.  The  third  is  from  Matthew  Arnold's  work,  entitled  "Liter- 
ature and  Dogma,"  the  fit  title  of  a  preposterous  book,  in  which  it 
repeatedly  occurs  as  the  fundamental  thing  of  its  contents.  The 
expression  is  —  "There  is  an  enduring  power,  not  ourselves,  that 
makes  for  righteousness."  Sometimes,  instead  of  "enduring  power," 
he  says,  "an  Eternal."  This  sentence  has  been  much  quoted  as  if  it 
were  a  golden  dictum.  To  us,  it  is  spurious  coin  from  lack  of  both 
the  ore  and  the  mintage  of  golden  truth.  It  is  pantheistic,  if  any- 
thing. Every  rational  mind  is,  ipso  facto,  a  person,  and  a  person 
only  can  be  a  power,  an  Eternal,  not  no-person,  but  actor,  to  secure 
righteousness.  The  expression,  "makes  for,"  is  designed  to  corres- 
pond with  its  impersonal  subject,  and  for  evasion  not  only  of  the  least 
recognition  of  a  moral  government  and  Governor,  but  of  moral  law 
and  a  moral  system.  He  ought  to  know  that  "conduct"  is  not 
synonymous  with  "righteousness,"  nor  good  "literature"  with  infidel. 


CHAPTER  VL 

!Vhat  must  be  true  of  the  retributory  punishment  to  be  inflicted  on 
all  incorrigible  sinners  by  God  as  Ruler  of  the  jinive^rsal  society  accord- 
ing to  the  moral  system. 

§  49.    IT  IS  NOT  DISCIPLINARY,  BUT  THE    RETRIBUTINF  PENALTY  FOR  SIN 
AS  INJUSTICE  TO  GOD'S  UNIVERSAL  AND  ETERNAL  SOCIETY. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  from  what  has  been  shown,  that  punitive  retri- 
bution is  never  disciplinary,  never  inflicted  by  God  with  any  reference 
to  the  amendment  or  benefit  of  its  recipient,  but  is  always  and  solely 
punishment  for  sin.  Its  end  is  to  secure  from  sinners  the  debt  of 
suffering  which  they  owe  to  God  and  His  loyal  society,  and  thus  to 
meet  the  demand  of  moral  nature  for  the  punishment  of  evil-doers, 
and  to  protect,  uphold,  and  promote  the  proper  good  of  God  and  all 
in  that  society,  which  they  have  assailed ^nd  injured.  God  does  dis- 
cipline mankind  in  this  world,  both  impenitent  and  Christian,  by 
manifold  chastisements  aimed  at  the  amendment  and  benefit  of  their 
recipients  and  of  others  through  them-  but  His  strokes  are  always 
lighter  than  their  guilt,  fall,  as  a  rule,  less  severely  on  the  ungodly 
(Ps.  73:3-14)  than  on  those  He  loves,  and  are  not  distributed  by 
any  scale  of  deserts  or  justice.  But  retributive  punishment  proper 
must  be  strictly  just,  strictly  disttibutive,  strictly  according  to  ill- 
desert  in  each  case  as  God  knows  it,  so  that,  when  executed,  distribu- 
tive justice  injist  be  its  measure,  tvhile  public  justice,  or  the  greatest 
^ood  of  the  universal  loyal  society  and  of  God,  its  Head,  must  be  its  end. 

§  50.    THE    QUESTION,    THAT    IT   IS    INCONSISTENT    WITH    GOD'S    BENEVO- 
LENCE,  ANSWERED. 

Nor  is  there  any  validity  in  the  objection  to  this  exact  retribu- 
tive justice,  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  benevolence  or  goodness 
of  God.  In  Him,  as  in  all  moral  beings,  benevolence  is  willing  and 
doing  precisely  what  the  law  requires;  and  I  have  shown  that  this  is 
just  what  it  requires  respecting  all  sinners,  unless  the  same  ends  can 


INCONSISTENT  WITH  GOD'S  BENEVOLENCE.  8i 

be  at  least  equally  secured  by  some  Divinely  provided  substitution. 
The  objection,  therefore,  is  really  against  the  law  itself,  against  the 
nature  of  moral  beings,  God's  included,  which  contains  and  issues 
the  law,  and  against  the  benevolence  which  fulfills  it.  Besides,  it  is 
equally  against  the  natural  consequences  of  sin;  for  God  created  the 
constitution  of  moral  beings,  and,  if  they  sin,  there  is  a  necessity  in 
it  for  these,  just  as  there  is  for  the  suffering  of  this  social  retribution. 
He  is  no  more  chargeable  with  causing  the  necessity  for  the  one  than 
for  the  other.  Neither  He,  nor  the  constitution  made  by  Him  causes 
either  of  them.  Sin,  the  supreme  monstrosity  of  the  universe,  causes 
both,  ever  brings  them  forth  as  twins — that  for  the  natural  conse- 
quences as  personal,  that  for  retributive  punishment  as  social.  God 
could  not  create  moral  beings  without  natural  freedom  of  will  and  a 
necessity,  if  they  would  will  rightly,  of  experiencing  happy  natural 
consequences,  and,  if  they  would  will  wrongly,  of  experiencing 
unhappy  ones;  nor  without  a  necessity,  from  the  social  quality  of 
their  nature,  if  they  will  rightly,  of  deserving  positive  rewards,  and, 
if  wrongly,  of  deserving  positive  retributions;  nor  without  a  moral 
necessity  on  Himself  of  regarding  and  treating  them  correspondingly 
by  conferring  such  rewards  and  inflicting  such  retributions.  God's 
design  in  constituting  them  was  not  that  they  should  sin  and  suffer 
either  the  natural  or  the  retributory  consequences  of  so  doing,  but  it 
was  that  they  should  obey  his  law  and  experience  the  blessed  conse- 
quences, both  natural  and  remuneratory,  of  so  doing;  and  He  has 
done  all  He  could,  consistently  with  their  nature  and  relations  to 
keep  them  from  doing  and  suffering  the  former,  and  to  induce  them 
to  do  and  experience  the  latter.  It  is  therefore  by  their  own  arbitra- 
ment, despite  all  He  has  done  to  prevent  it,  that  all  who  have  sinned 
have  done  so,  and  have  experienced  the  natural  consequences  of  so 
doing  and  made  it  necessary  that  they  should  suffer  the  punitive  also, 
unless  retrieved  by  a  Divinely  provided  substitution  and  its  fulfilled 
conditions.  The  whole  evil  of  their  condition  is  their  own  work; 
and  the  great  moral  poet.  Young,  admirably  presents  the  case  in  the 
following  lines — 

"Man  shall  be  blest,  as  far  as  man  permits. 
Not  man  alone,  all  rationals  heaven  arms 
.  With  an  illustrious,  but  tremendous  power 

To  counteract  its  own  most  gracious  ends; 
And  this  of  strict  necessity,  not  choice; 
That  power  denied,  men,  angels  were  no  more 
But  passive  engines,  void  of  praise  or  blame. 
A  nature  rational  implies  the  power 
Of  being  blest  or  wretched  as  we  please; 
Else  idle  reason  would  have  naught  to  do; 


82  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

And  he  that  would  be  barr'd  capacity 

Of  pain,  courts  incapacity  of  bliss. 

Heaven  wills  our  happiness,  allows  our  doom; 

Invites  us  ardently,  but  not  compels; 

Heaven  but  persuades;  almighty  man  decrees; 

Man  is  the  maker  of  immortal  fates; 

Man  falls  by  man,  if  finally  he  falls; 

And  fall  he  must,  who  learns  from  death  alone 

The  dreadful  secret  that  he  lives  forever." 

— Night,  VII.,  nea7'  its  close. 

Milton,  also,  has  grandly  presented  it  in  Paradise  Lost,  Book  III.,  near 
the  beginning,  but  at  too  great  length  to  quote.  The  question,  then, 
concerning  God's  benevolence,  as  related  to  either  the  natural  or  the 
retributive  consequences  of  sin,  is  simply  whether  He  was  benevolent 
in  creating  moral  beings  at  all,  or  would  have  been  so,  if  He  had 
never  created  any  such  beings.  For,  having  created  them.  He  is  just 
as  benevolent  in  inflicting  deserved  punishment  upon  the  guilty,  when 
the  rights  and  infinite  interests  and  concerns  of  Himself  and  all  the 
loyal  require  it,  as  in  rewarding  the  obedient,  or  in  creating  such 
beings  at  all.  Not  to  inflict  it  would  be  consummate  injustice  and 
the  direct  opposite  of  benevolence,  unless  a  substitution  for  it  is  pro- 
vided by  Him  and  accepted  by  sinners  in  fulfilling  its  conditions 
before  their  gracious  probation  closes  at  death. 

§51.    DURATION  OF  THIS    PUNISHMENT,   AND   ILL-DESERT  OF   SINNERS 
ITS  ONLY  MEASURE. 

There  is  no  termination  to  the  ill-desert  of  sin,  nor  to  the  due  of 
retributive  suffering  created  by  it  to  God  and  His  whole  loyal  society. 
The  gdod-desert  of  obedience  lasts  while  it  does,  but  ends  with  it,  if 
it  does.  But  the  due  of  moral  love  to  God  and  His  loyal  society 
from  every  one  is  as  lasting  as  his  being.  Sin  is  repudiation  of  this 
due  and  of  the  law  which  creates  it,  and  is  thus  in  conflict  with  the 
nature  which  gives  the  law.  It  is  wrong  and  injury  to  the  universal 
society,  breaking  its  order  and  harmony  and  creating  unhappiness 
and  misery  in  it  wherever  its  contagion  extends — assailing  its  rights 
and  securities — diffusing  pernicious  influences  in  it — causing  jarrings, 
schisms,  wars,  and  havocs  in  it — imperiling  the  rectitude  and  ever- 
lasting well-being  of  its  probationary  members — destroying  the  possi- 
bility of  self-recovery  in  all  who  commit  it,  and  of  the  eradication 
of  it  and  its  plague  from  the  universe — causing  the  whole  dire 
progeny  of  its  natural  consequences  in  all  guilty  of  it — and  wl-onging 
God  supremely  by  disregarding  and  trampling  upon  His  rights,  claims, 
interests,  authority,  and  heart.  There  is  no  evil  in  the  universe  not 
from  it.    It  is  the  accursed  mother  of  all  curses,  including  everlasting 


TRUE  MEANING  OF  THE   WRATH  OF  GOD.  83 

death  and  punitive  retribution.  The  only  retribution  possible  is 
Divinely  inflicted  suffering,  whatever  it  may  be  or  include.  This,  we 
have  seen,  is  due  from  the  sinner  to  God  and  His  universal  society. 
It  is  his  everlasting  debt  to  them,  because  his  ill-desert,  created  by 
his  sin,  is  everlasting.  Whatever  punishment  he  deserves  for  his  sin, 
as  he  commits  it,  he  deserves  the  same  for  it  as  long  as  he  exists;  so 
that,  if,  at  any  time  during  his  probation,  he  repents,  and  is  forgiven 
and  restored  by  God  to  the  treatment  of  the  holy,  it  must  be  by  pure 
grace,  and  not  oft  the  ground  of  justice  at  all — not  as,  in  any  sense, 
deserved  by  him.  Ill-desert  is  a  soul-color  that  never  fades.  This  is 
true  of  even  the  ill-desert  of  wrong  done  by  one  man  to  another  in 
their  private  relations.  Its  doer  can  never  maintain  that  he  deserves 
no  retribution  for  it  from  the  wronged  one,  and  demand  as  his  right, 
that  the  latter,  or  any  one,  shall  regard  and  treat  him  as  z/"he  had  not 
done  it.  He  can  no  more  do  so  in  a  week  than  in  a  day,  in  a  month 
than  in  a  week,  in  a  year  than  in  a  month,  in  any  number  of  years 
than  in  one,  in  myriads  of  ages  than  in  a  lifetime.  No  duration  can 
have  the  slightest  effect  in  obliterating  or  diminishing  his  ill-desert, 
or  in  restoring  his  forfeited  right  to  the  wronged  one's  favor;  and,  if 
that  one  ever  restores  him  to  it  and  treats  him  as  {/"innocent  towards 
him,  even  if  he  may  have  repented,  it  must  be  by  exercising  grace  in 
forgiving  him  contrary  to  his  abiding,  unimpaired  ill-desert.  How 
can  it  be  otherwise  in  respect  to  the  ill-desert  of  all  sinners  against 
God?  In  its  very  nature,  sin  involves  an  everlasting  forfeiture  of  all 
right  to  His  favor  and  desert  of  punishment  from  Him,  the  same  as 
when  acted.  Like  the  blood-spot  on  the  hand  of  Lady  Macbeth,  the 
dooming  color  of  ill-desert  on  the  sinner's  soul  will  not  out,  nor  fade. 
But,  besides  this  fadeless  fact  of  ill-desert,  the  everlasting  rights, 
interests,  and  concerns  of  God  and  His  whole  loyal,  eternal  society 
absolutely  demand  the  perpetual  punishment  of  irreclaimable  sinners 
according  to  their  ill-deserts,  as  we  have  already  shown  and  will  yet 
show  more  fully;  and  God,  therefore,  can  be  neither  just  nor  benevo- 
lent, if  He  does  not  inflict  it  upon  all  such  sinners  or  provide  some 
adequate  substitution  for  its  endurance  by  them,  on  the  ground  of 
which  He  can  justly  exercise  grace  towards  them  during  their  pro- 
bation, and  forgive  all  who  fulfill  the  ethical  conditions  of  reliance 
upon  it  and  return  to  obedience,  on  which  it  is  offered  to  all. 

§52.    TRUE  MEANING  OF  THE  WRATH  OF  GOD  AGAINST  SINNERS. 

The  necessity  on  God  to  inflict  this  punishment  upon  all  sinners, 
unless  rescued  in  the  way  stated,  proceeds,  as  already  shown,  from 


84  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

justice  in  the  law  as  it  is  in,  and  emanates  from,  His  own  and  all  other 
moral  natures;  and  the  perfect  conformity  of  His  will  to  this  quality 
of  the  law  and  of  His  nature,  with  His  corresponding  emotions,  is 
His  wrath  (orge)  against  them.  This  is  the  only  wrath-principle 
which  can  be  ascribed  to  Him  or  any  other  good  being.  Far  enough 
is  His  wrath  from  mere  flaming  emotions  of  indignation,  or  combus- 
tion of  anger  against  sinners.  It  is  no  such  ebulliency  of  emotion  or 
passion,  but  His  holy  will  with  accordant  emotions — His  moral  dis- 
position, perfect  as  His  nature,  to  treat  sinners  deserving  the  penalty 
of  the  law  precisely  as  it  requires— that  is,  exactly  according  to  their 
ill-deserts  for  its  social  ends,  as  already  set  forth.  There  is  no  other 
rule  of  retribution  possible,  conceivable,  just,  or  adequate  to  these 
ends,  and  therefore  benevolent,  to  treat  them  by;  and  it  is  the  only 
one  taught  in  Scripture.*  If  therefore  sinners  of  our  race  are  not 
saved  by  grace  through  a  substitution,  God  can  have  no  room  for 
counsel  about  subjecting  them  to  the  penal  suffering  they  deserve, 
and  no  liberty  to  do  better  by  them,  or  at  all  otherwise,  than  just  as 
they  deserve.  The  measure  of  inflicted  suffering  must  be  in  every  case 
neither  less  nor  more  than  exactly  just — that  is,  exactly  according  to 
the  measure  of  ill-desert  as  God  sees  it,  since  deficiency  of  it  would  be 
unjust  to  God  and  His  loyal  society,  and  excess  of  it  would  be  cruelty 
to  the  sufferer — that  is,  while  perfect  ethical  public  justice  must  be  its 
end,  perfect  distributive  justice  must  be  its  measure. 

§  53.  ADDITIONAL  PROOF  THAT  GOD  CAN  HAVE  NO  RIGHT  OF  COUNSEL 
AND  NO  LIBERTY,  AGAINST  PUNISHING  INCORRIGIBLE  SINNERS  AS 
THEY  DESERVE. 

Bushnell  says — "There  is  no  principle  which  any  human  being 
can  state,  or  even  think,  that  obliges  Him  [God],  on  pain  of  losing 
character,  to  do  by  the  disobedient  exactly  as  they  deserve.  The  rule, 
taken  as  a  measure,  has  no  moral  significance.  God,  therefore,  need 
not  give  Himself  up  to  wrath  [justice],  in  order  to  be  just;  He  can 
have  the  right  of  counsel  still.  Perfect  liberty  is  left  to  Him  to  do  by 
the  wrong-doer  better  than  he  deserves,  and  yet  without  any  fault  of 
justice — better,  that  is,  considering  His  own  condemning  judgment 
of  him,  and  the  man's  condemning  judgment  of  himself,  than  He 
might  well  do,  or  even  ought  to  do,  if  the  sublime  interests  of  His 
government  should  require."  f    We  make  this  quotation  now  to  show 

(*)  Job  34:11;  Ps.  62:12;  Piov.  24:12;  Jer.  17:10;  32:19;  Ez.  7:27;  33:20;  Mat. 
16:27;  l"^om.  2:6;  II.  Cor.  5:10;  11:15;  I-  ^st.  1:17;  Rev.  2:23;  20:12;  22:12. 
(f)  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  pp.  170,  171. 


ADDITIONAL  PROOF.  85 

the  importance  of  the  position  we  are  maintaining.  If  we  have  done 
anything,  we  have  both  thought  and  stated,  and,  as  we  believe,  demon- 
strated precisely  such  a  principle;  and  it  is  fair  to  retort  that  no 
human  being  can  state,  or  even  think,  any  principle  which  permits 
God  to  treat  the  disobedient  otherwise  than  exactly  as  they  deserve, 
unless  on  the  ground  of  a  substitution.  This  author  certainly  has 
not  stated  one,  and,  we  infer,  because  he  could  not  think  one;  and  no 
attempt  to  jumble  law  and  redemption  together  can  attain  such  a  one. 
Justice  either  does,  or  does  not,  demand  social  retributions.  If  it 
does,  how  can  God  have  a  right  of  counsel  and  a  liberty  about  meet- 
ing that  demand,  which  involves  all  "  the  sublime  interests  of  His 
government,"  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  His  loyal 
society  forever,  and  of  Himself  as  necessarily  connected  with  it?  If 
it  does  not  demand  them,  what  is  it,  at  best,  but  a  name?  If  not  social, 
there  can  be  none,  because  every  one  stands  and  must  be  dealt  with 
as  an  isolated  unit.  Deserts,  good  or  bad,  and  a  social-moral  system 
are  then  impossible.  That  last  clause — "if  the  sublime  interests  of 
His  government  require,"  is  the  insurmountable  barrier  in  the  way  of 
any  counsel  and  liberty  in  the  case,  unless  on  the  basis  of  a  substi- 
tution. Besides  this  rule,  no  other  can  even  be  thought;  and  to  say 
that  God  can  have  a  right  of  counsel  about  conforming  to  it,  and  a 
liberty  to  do  better,  or  at  all  otherwise,  by  the  sinner  than  he  deserves, 
unless  in  providing  and  executing  a  substitution,  is  to  say  that  He 
has  such  a  right  about  conforming  to  the  law,  and  a  liberty  to  treat 
sinners  without  regard  to  its  demands,  than  which,  if  His  nature  con- 
tains and  gives  the  law,  what  can  be  more  absurd?  It  is  to  say  further 
that  He  has  this  right  as  to  whether  He  will  regard,  and  do  all  He 
wisely  can  to  secure  the  rights,  interests,  and  concerns  forever  of 
Himself  and  all  the  loyal  society,  and  a  liberty  to  do  better  for  sinners 
than  to  regard  these  and  to  do  what  He  can  to  secure  them!  It  is  to 
say  still  further,  that  the  law  with  its  justice,  is  not  in  and  from  His 
nature  and  no  less  immutable,  and  that  He  is  not  bound  to  act  by  it! 
It  implies  a  denial  that  either  He  or  His  intelligent  creatures  have 
any  rights  and  claims  to  be  mutually  and  sacredly  regarded,  or  any 
moral  dues  from  or  debts  to  each  other  by  their  nature,  and  of  course 
that  sinners  owe  God  and  His  loyal  society  any  debt  whatever  of 
punitive  suffering  for  all  the  wrong  and  injury  they  have  done  them! 
In  short,  it  implies  a  denial  that  God  has  any  social-moral  sys- 
tem, and  so  that  either  He  or  any  other  being  has  any  real  rights 
whatever!  For  this  so-called  right  of  counsel  is  one  simply  to  disre- 
gard all  rights  and  to  act  by  mere  caprice;  and  this  so-called  liberty 


86  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

is  that  of  mere  arbitrary  will,  which  recognizes  no  law;  and  both 
would  be  against  the  law  as  it  is  in  all  moral  natures. 

§  54.    ABSURDITY  OF  THE  NOTION,  THAT  HE  CAN  HAVE  THIS  RIGHT  AND 

LIBERTY. 

Let  US  consider  it  some  further.  If  God,  by  counsel,  may  inflict 
on  sinners  less  punishment  than  they  deserve,  the  question  is,  how 
much  less?  A  quarter?  A  half?  Three-quarters?  Nine-tenths? 
Ninety-nine  hundredths?  Why  may  He  not  dispense  with  it  entirely, 
and  abandon  all  show  of  government  and  justice? — all  care  whether 
obedience  is  or  is  not  rendered  to  His  arbitrary  so-called  law?  All 
basis  for  punishment  is  destroyed  by  the  supposition,  as  it  leaves  no 
principle  to  proportion  it  by,  or  to  demand  it  at  all;  and  the  whole  intel- 
ligent universe  is  afloat  on  a  sea  of  mere  arbitrary  will  and  caprice. 
But  we  deny  that  any  such  right  of  counsel  and  such  liberty  are  con- 
sistent with  the  benevolence  of  God.  As  the  ends  of  justice,  both  as 
ethical  and  as  retributive,  are  social,  being  those  for  which  He  created 
moral  natures,  and  consisting  in  His  own  and  their  proper  good,  the 
retributive  punishment  of  sinners  which  it  demands  is  as  truly  benev- 
olence to  the  imiversal  holy  society  as  the  reward  to  the  obedient  which 
it  requires  is  to  them.  How  then  can  God's  benevolence  be  perfect, 
if  His  infliction  of  retributive  punishment  on  sinners  is  not  perfectly 
fust  according  to  their  ill-desert?  If  it  is  less  than  they  deserve,  it 
must  be  less  by  so  much  than  would  be  perfectly  benevolent  to  the 
holy  society;  and,  since  He  must  always  act  from  design,  it  must  be 
designedly  less.  But,  if  He  designs  not  to  act  in  perfect  benevolence 
to  the  universal  holy  society,  can  there  be  any  real  benevole?ice  in 
His  acting?  Designedly  defective,  imperfect  benevolence,  what  else 
could  that  be  in  any  being,  especially  in  God,  than  designed  selfish- 
ness? In  Him,  it  could  only  be  a  selfish  sympathy,  in  the  case  we 
are  considering,  with  the  guilty  against  the  supreme  rights,  dues, 
interests,  and  concerns  of  the  loyal  and  Himself;  and  what  benev- 
olence could  consist  with  that?  But,  if  benevolence  designedly 
less  than  perfect  were  possible  for  God,  how  much  less  may  it 
be,  and  still  be  genuine?  One  quarter?  One-half?  Three-quarters? 
Nine-tenths?  Ninety-nine  hundredths?  The  supposition  is  absurd. 
He  plainly  cannot  be  benevolent  at  all,  if  not  perfectly  so;  and,  for 
the  same  reasons.  He  cannot  be  just  at  all,  if  not  perfectly  so.  As 
the  Siamese  twins  were  so  vitally  connected,  that  they  must  live  or 
die  together,  so  God's  benevolence  and  justice  are  vitally  and  etern- 
ally united,  and  they  have  the  same  consummate  end,  which  is  that 


ABSURDITY  OF  THE  NOTIOiV.  87 

of  the  law,  the  highest  possible  well-being  of  all  who  do  not  forfeit  it 
by  sin.  No  retributive  punishment,  therefore,  or  any  less  than 
exactly  according  to  the  ill-desert  of  sinners,  as  God  sees  it,  would 
be  injustice  to  tlie  universal  holy  society  and  Himself;  and,  for  this 
very  reason,  would  be  equally  the  opposite  of  benevolence  to  it  and 
Himself.  By  refusing  to  inflict  it.  He  would  act  against  His  own 
law  and  His  own  and  all  other  moral  natures  which  give  it,  and 
would  bring  blight  and  destruction  on  the  holiness  and  well-being 
of  Himself  and  all  those  natures.  So  totally  false  and  fatal  is  this 
notion  that  God  has  a  right  of  counsel  as  to  whether  He  will  or  will 
not  execute  the  exact  punishment  deserved  by  sinners  without  any 
substitution  for  it,  and  a  liberty  to  do  better  by  them  than  to  execute 
it;  and  that  justice  is  not  in  and  of  the  law  and  the  nature  which 
gives  it,  but  is  a  mere  invention,  incorporated  by  arbitrary  will  into 
a  positive  institution  of  government.  What  errors  it  would  prevent, 
what  truths  establish,  if  men,  when  reasoning  about  what  God  can 
or  cannot  do,  would  remember  that,  although  He  is  omnipotent  and 
independent  of  His  creatures,  His  will  and  actions  are  nevertheless 
never  arbitrary  or  capricious,  but  are  always  and  absolutely  ruled 
by  His  eternal  and  immutable  nature,  having  the  law  in  it  for  Him- 
self and  them! 

§55.    WHAT  god's  design  IN  INFLICTING   THIS   PUNISHMENT  IS  NOT, 
AND  WHAT  IT  IS. 

The  design  of  the  infliction  of  this  retributive  punishment  is 
not,  as  some  hold,  to  maintain  tht  authority  of  God  as  Moral  Gov- 
ernor, but  to  secure  from  sinners,  as  we  have  shown,  the  debt  of  penal 
suffering  which  they  ozve  God  and  His  universal  holy  society  as  the 
naturally  demanded  substitute  for  the  moral  love  of  which  they  have 
robbed  them.  The  end  of  the  punishment  is  the  same  as  of  that 
love,  which  is  the  greatest  possible  real  good  of  that  society  and  of 
God  as  related  to  it;  and  it  is  demanded  by  the  law  and  the  nature 
which  gives  it  for  that  end  and  no  other.  As  to  God's  authority,  it 
is  His  moral  right  to  govern  for  that  end,  and  is  no  more  an  arbi- 
trary assumption  or  arrogation  than  His  conformity  to  His  law  and 
nature  in  any  other  respect.  He  cannot,  therefore,  inflict  retributive 
punishment  to  maintain  His  authority  or  His  right  to  govern,  which 
would  be  making  this  its  own  end.  But,  when  the  real  end  demands 
punishment.  He  is  bound  by  an  infinite  obligation  of  His  own  nature 
to  inflict  it,  unless  He  can  and  does,  from  mercy  to  the  guilty,  pro- 
vide a  substitution  for  it  at  least  as  effective,  as  a  means  to  secure 


88  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

that  end,  as  the  punishment  would  be.  Beyond  choosing  between 
these  two  courses  He  has  no  other  option,  not  capricious  and  unjust; 
and,  even  if  He  provides  a  substitute,  He  must  nevertheless  inflict 
the  punishment  on  all  who  do  not  accept  and  rely  upon  it  for  salva- 
tion, not  to  maintain  His  authority,  nor  as  mere  governmental 
policy,  but  to  discharge  His  absolute  duty  by  the  law  and  His  nature 
to  secure  the  end  stated.  When  He  does  this,  He  must  grade  the 
infliction  exactly  according  to  the  measure  of  each  one's  ill-desert, 
as  He  sees  it,  and  according  to  no  other,  less  or  greater,  because 
there  is  no  other,  and  the  infliction  would  be  arbitrary  and  capri- 
cious, and  not  justice  at  all.  It  is  the  verdict  of  universal  reason  and 
conscience,  that  the  degree  of  each  one's  ill-desert  is  the  only  just 
measure  of  his  punishment.  If  God  deals  with  sinners  as  the  law 
requires,  He  must  punish  them  according  to  this  degree,  the  necessity 
for  Him  to  do  this,  like  that  for  a  moral  government,  being  one  of 
moral  nature.  Divine  and  created.  He  can  neither  disregard  nor 
vary  from  this  rule  of  retribution  in  His  administration  of  the  law, 
the  whole  function  of  His  will  and  omnipotence,  as  Ruler,  being  to 
comply  with  and  execute  its  demands.  In  no  sense  does  He  make 
justice. 

What  we  have  thus  said  involves  as  a  postulate,  that  the  nature, 
not  the  relations,  of  moral  beings  is  the  ground  and  source  of  all 
their  mutual  obligations,  rights,  and  dues.  Reason  and  conscience 
affirm  that  these  pertain  entirely  to  the  person,  while  relations  are 
simply  the  conditions  or  occasions  of  this  affirmation.  For,  how  could 
that  nature,  which  is  the  ground  and  source  of  all  relations,  not  be 
also  the  ground  and  source  of  all  its  own  obligations,  rights,  and 
dues  respecting  others  in  those  relations?  How  could  its  relations, 
which  wholly  result  from  and  depend  upon  itself  as  their  ground 
and  source,  and  most  of  which  are  transient,  be  the  ground  and 
source  of  its  obligations,  rights,  and  dues,  or  other  than  simply  con- 
ditions or  occasions  of  its  causing  and  affirming  these  in  itself 
respecting  the  related  beings? 

§  56.    SIN  AN  EVIL  IN  ITSELF,  HAVING  INTRINSIC  ILL-DESERT. 

What  we  have  thus  said  also  involves  as  a  postulate,  that  sin  is 
an  evil  in  itself,  having  intrinsic  demerit  or  ill-desert.  It  is  no  objec- 
tion to  this,  that  the  ideas  of  merit  and  demerit  are  relative;  for  the 
law  itself  and  both  obedience  and  sin  are  relative  in  the  same  sense, 
that  is,  are  social.  But  how  does  the  relative  or  social  nature  of  sin 
prevent  it  from  being  an  evil  in  itself,  and  from  having  intrinsic  ill- 


SnV  A  A'  EVIL  nV  ITSELF.  89 

desert?  Is  it  not  such  an  evil  for  one  to  will  and  act  intrinsic 
injustice  and  antagonism  to  God  and  man,  intrinsic  violation  of  the 
mandate  of  his  moral  reason  to  render  them  love  as  their  intrinsic' 
natural  due?  Says  one — "Plainly,  sin  is  an  evil  only  as  in  its  nature 
it  is  related  to  evil  consequences."*  Our  questions  just  put  apply 
equally  to  this  affirmation;  yet,  as  it  relates  directly  to  the  matter  of 
our  discussion,  we  deem  it  important  to  notice  it  some  farther 
although  it  scarcely  has  currency.  Its  necessary  counterpart  must 
be,  that  obedience  is  a  good  only  as  in  its  nature  it  is  related  to  good 
consequences;  and,  in  both  cases,  the  consequences  must  be  simply 
natural.  We  ask,  then,  Jirsi,  what  that  is  "in  the  nature"  of  obedi- 
ence or  sin  which  is  related  to  these  consequences  of  each  ?  Plainly, 
the  peculiar  quality  of  each;  and  is  not  this  quality  or  peculiar 
nature  of  each  intrinsic?  How  can  it  be  extrinsic?  And,  as  the 
consequences  of  each  mainly  consist  in  and  result  from  the  action 
of  conscience  respecting  it  /;/  i^^^^f,  and  not  respecting  anything 
extrinsic  to  it,  what  else  can  that  ///  itself  possibly  be  than  its 
intrinsic  right  or  wrong,  good  or  evil  quality  or  nature?  The  fact, 
that  each  kind  of  action  invaribly  produces  the  same  peculiar  class 
of  consequences,  never  that  of  the  other,  proves  that  each  has  its 
own  peculiar  intrinsic  quality,  which  renders  it  such  a  fixed,  invari- 
able cause.  But,  secondly,  has  conscience  ever  taught  or  hinted  that 
obedience  is  not  a  good  in  itself  and  does  not  create  good-desert,  or 
that  sin  is  not  an  evil  in  itself  and  does  not  create  ill-desert,  or  that 
these  two  kinds  of  desert  are  created  by  the  consequences  of  the  two 
kinds  of  action?  Does  it  impute  no  desert  to  either  kind  of  action, 
and  produce  no  sentence  of  reward  or  punishment  upon  its  actor, 
till  afie?'  its  consequences  appear  to  him,  or  except  as  he  may  have 
acquired  some  experience  of  them  from  previous  action  and  may 
thus  have  anticipated  them?  How,  then,  could  he  ever  l>egin  to  act 
morally,  and  to  have  desert  imputed  to  him  by  his  conscience?  A 
first  moral  act  would  be  utterly  impossible,  and  so  no  following  one 
would  be  possible,  according  to  this  theory.  But  the  theory  is  out- 
lawed by  the  single  fact,  that  the  imputation  of  desert  by  conscience 
and  its  corresponding  sentence  of  reward  or  punishment  are  tiever 
based  on  the  consequences,  but  always  on  the  intrinsic  character 
of  the  action,  or  of  the  actor  in  it.  The  only  relation  the  conse- 
quences of  either  kind  of  action  can  sustain  to  its  desert  is,  that,  so 
far  as  the  actor  is  able  to  foresee  them  as  sure,  or  in  any  degree 


(*)  See  Prof.  N.  W.  Taylor's  Lectures  on  the  ^[oral  Government  of  God,  Vol. 
II.,  p.  279. 


go  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

likely,  to  result,  if  he  does  the  action,  and  as  he  does  it  to  secure 
them,  or  in  disregard  or  defiance  of  them,  he  increases  the  good  or 
bad  character  and  desert  of  the  action,  or  of  himself  in  it.  But 
thirdly,  if  obedience  is  not  a  good  in  itself  and  sin  not  an  evil  in 
itself,  but  each  is  such  only  as  it  is  related  to  its  natural  conse- 
quences, then  neither  of  them  is,  in  itself,  moral  action  at  all,  and 
intrinsically  they  are  both  alike  perfectly  indifferent,  neither  good 
nor  bad.  Their  names,  obedience,  and  sin,  indicate  no  moral  quality 
in  or  difference  between  them,  but  simply  their  respective  relations 
to  their  consequences;  and  to  these,  not  as  God  sees  them,  but  as 
the  actor  of  either  does  or  can  anticipate  them.  But  what  conceiv- 
able reason  is  there  why,  of  two  intrinsically  non-moral,  indifferent 
actions,  one  should  invariably  produce  good  consequences,  the  other 
bad — why  they  should  not  both  produce  the  same — or  why  either  of 
them  should  produce  such  as  it  does,  and  not  the  opposite,  or  any 
at  all?  If  there  is  no  intrinsic  moral  and  deserving  difference 
between  the  actions,  there  can  be  none  otherwise;  and  how  can  they 
produce  different  consequences,  and  that  invariably?  But  further,  as 
consequences  have  no  moral  quality,  and  both  kinds  of  action  are 
in  themselves  non-moral  there  is  no  conceivable  reason  why  this 
quality  should  be  in,  or  belong  to,  the  nature  of  these  actions  as 
related  to  their  consequences;  and  it  is  plainly  impossible  that  it 
should;  for  how  can  the  relation  of  a  non-moral  cause  to  its  non- 
moral  effects  be  itself  moral,  or  make  either  it  or  these  moral? 
There  can,  therefore,  according  to  this  theory,  be  no  ethical  system, 
no  morality,  no  merit  or  demerit,  in  any  sense.  By  no  effort  can  the 
truth  be  escaped,  that  the  sole  reason  why  obedience  and  sin  pro- 
duce the  natural  consequences  they  do  in  their  actors  exists  entirely 
in  the  intrinsic  moral  quality  of  each;  and  that,  prime  among  these 
consequences  is  the  fact,  that,  as  the  moral  quality  of  actions  does 
not  inhere  in  them  apart  from  the  actors,  but  in  them  in  their 
actions,  the  merit  or  demerit  of  the  actions  pertains  entirely  to  the 
actors.  It  is  the  actor  that  deserves  reward  or  punishment  for  his 
acting;  and  therefore  it  is  not  in  any  of  his  executive  acts,  but  in  his 
heart,  spirit,  or  radical  moral  will,  from  which  these  proceed,  that 
merit  and  demerit,  desert  of  reward  or  of  punishment  has  its  birth, 
home,  and  greater  or  less  measure.  There  are  myriads  of  murderers, 
adulterers,  thieves,  liars,  and  criminals  of  all  kinds  ifi  heart,  who 
never  committed  the  executive  acts  of  such,  who  are  really  more 
criminal  and  deserve  greater  punishment  than  many  who  have  com- 
mitted them.     So  there  are  myriads  of  truly  holy  ones  in  heart,  who 


NO  PLAN  OF  REDEMPTION.  91 

have  done  very  few  and  only  inconspicuous  executive  acts,  who  are 
intrinsically  more  well-deserving  of,  and  will  receive  from  God 
greater,  some  of  them  perhaps  vastly  greater,  rewards  than  multi- 
tudes who  have  abounded  in  such  acts.  The  soul  itself,  the  immortal 
spirit  is  the  only  real  home  of  all  true  morality  towards  God  or  man, 
and  of  good  or  ill-desert,  and  God  is  the  only  perfect  spectator, 
critic,  and  exact  recompenser  of  all  done  in  it  according  to  its 
intrinsic  desert. 

§  57.    NO  PLAN  OR  MEASURE  OF  REDEMPTION  IN  GOD'S  MORAL  GOV- 
ERNMENT. 

From  what  has  been  shown,  it  follows  that  God's  moral  govern- 
ment, instituted  as  we  have  seen,  involves  no  plan  or  measure  of 
redemption,  has  no  reference  to  the  recovery  of  sinners,  and  ho  pro- 
vision in  it  for  mercy  or  grace  towards  them.*  His  moral  govern- 
ment consists  in  holding  and  treating  all  created  moral  beings  as 
responsible  and  accountable  to  Him,  as  their  absolutely  rightful 
Moral  Governor,  for  their  moral  action,  and  in  administering  the 
sanctions  of  His  law  to  them  by  favoring  and  rewarding  the  obedient 
and  frowning  upon  and  punishing  the  disobedient  according  to  their 
deserts,  as  its  justice  demands  for  its  end.  It  was  instituted  in  and 
for  moral  beings  as  such,  and  not  as  sinners;  and  its  institution  did 
not  imply  that  any  of  them  would  ever  become  sinners,  but  merely 
that  in  their  freedom  they  might.  How,  then,  could  it  contain  a 
redemptive  arrangement  or  provision  of  any  kind,  or  have  one 
involved  in  it?  Conscience  certainly  never  gives  an  intimation  of 
it.  'It  never  whispers  of  redemption  or  mercy,  but  inexorably  dooms 
all  guilty  souls;  and,  in  doing  so,  it  but  echoes  the  sentence  of  God, 
as  Moral  Governor.  The  question  is  not  whether  God,  foreseeing 
the  sin  of  mankind,  had  or  had  not  an  eternal  purpose  or  plan  of 
redemption  in  His  mind  for  them,  for  this  He  certainly  had;  but 
whether  it  was  part  of,  or  embraced  in.  His  moral  government  insti- 
tuted in  and  for  His  rational  creatures,  or  was  devised  by  Him  to 
rescue  human  sinners  from  the  penalty  and  power  of  their  sin,  which 
it  certainly  was.  They  violate  the  law  of  His  government;  He  devises 
and  executes  a  plan  to  save  them  from  the  punitive  retribution  they 
deserve  for  the  violation;  and,  while  the  plan  and  its  execution  relate 
directly  to  His  government,  they  do  so,  just  as  a  remedy  for  a  dis- 
ease relates  to  the  bodily  constitution.  In  the  nature  of  the  case, 
they  can  no  more  be  a  part  of  it,  or  involved  in  it,  than  a  remedy 

(*)  Bushnell's  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  Part  III.,  Cliap.  II. 


93  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

can  be  a  part  of  or  involved  in  that  constitution.  They  must  be 
independent  of  it  in  origin,  subsequent  to  it  in  the  order  of  things, 
and  necessarily  a  matter  of  distinct  counsel  and  adoption,  of  mere 
mercy  and  grace,  and  not  of  government  at  all.  To  suppose  a 
redemptive  provision  in  God's  moral  government  is  intrinsically 
absurd.  It  is  to  suppose  that,  from  its  beginning,  His  government 
has  carried  its  own  nullification  in  its  vitals,  has  been  self- abrogated, 
or  only  an  empty  show.  It  would  be  an  invitation  and  incitement 
to  moral  beings,  if  aware  of  it,  to  begin  and  continue  to  sin.  It  would 
be  like  the  Temperance  Society  I  once  aided  in  organizing  with  a 
pledge  of  future  total  abstinence  from  all  intoxicating  beverages. 
After  the  constitution  was  adopted,  the  names  of  nearly  all  present, 
about  fifty,  were  subscribed,  and  the  officers  were  elected,  one  mem- 
ber moved  that  an  article  should  be  added  to  the  constitution,  that, 
if  any  member  should  at  any  time  wish  to  be  released  from  the 
pledge,  he  could  be  by  applying  to  the  President  or  Secretary!  I 
opposed  its  adoption,  but  a  minister  who  had  joined  favored  it,  say- 
ing that  he  did  not  believe  in  binding  people  by  covenants  and 
pledges  longer  than  they  willed;  and  it  was  adopted!  That  society 
died  therewith  by  this,  its  own  act;  and  so  would  God's  moral  gov- 
ernment, or  any  other,  which,  by  its  institution,  contained  a  pro- 
vision or  method  of  redemption  for  its  own  transgressions.  This 
notion  arises  from  the  vitiating  mistake,  already  noticed,  of  con- 
founding God's  moral  government  with  His  temporary  provisional 
government,  positively  instituted  for  the  Israelitish  people  through 
Moses.  But  this  was  only  a  modified  application  of  His  moral  gov- 
ernment to  sinners  of  that  people  in  their  temporal  life  and  relations 
to  each  other  and  to  God,  which  was  "ordained  by  angels  in  the 
hand  of  a  Mediator"  (Gal.  3:19),  as  part  of  a  grace-scheme  towards 
them  and  typically  towards  mankind.  This  mistake  is  astonishing; 
for  this  theocratic  government  over  Israel  was  not  over  any  of  man- 
kind before  it  was  ordained  at  Sinai;  nor  was  it  ever  over  any  other 
people;  nor  has  it  been  over  them  since  the  time  of  Christ  or  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem;  nor  will  it  ever  be  over  any  of  mankind 
again;  yet  surely  God  has  always  had  His  moral  government  over 
all  mankind  and  all  rational  creatures,  and  always  will  have.  It  is 
from  the  penalties  for  sin  of  this  utiiversal  and  perpetual  government 
that  the  scheme  of  redemption  provides  the  way  and  means  of  sal- 
vation for  human  sinners;  and  it  is  by  the  infliction  of  these  ever- 
lasting penalties  that  all  not  saved  by  this  grace-scheme  will  be 
punished.    We  have  no  knowledge  of  any  such  scheme  in  or  con- 


EXACT  RETRIBUTIVE  PUNISHMENT.  (53 

nected  with  God's  government  over  rational  beings  in  any  other 
world;  and  thus  this  notion  of  a  redemptive  provision  in  it,  as  insti- 
tuted, and  therefore  universal  for  sinners,  vanishes  into  air,  and  it  is 
made  certain  that  the  redemptive  provision  for  human  sinners  is 
outside  of  God's  government  over  them  both  in  origin  and  in 
intrinsic  nature.  His  moral  government  is  founded  in  and  demanded 
by  His  own  and  all  created  moral  natures;  His  redemptive  system 
is  His  device,  His  scheme  to  save  sinners  from  its  penalty  and  their 
sin.  As  already  said,  this  provision  is  related  to  this  government 
as  medicine  is  to  man's  bodily  constitution.  Men  become  diseased 
in  body  by  violating  their  constitution,  just  as  they  become  sinners 
and  liable  to  penal  retribution  by  violating  God's  government;  and, 
as  the  design  of  medicine  is  to  cure  the  disease  of  the  body,  so  that 
of  the  redemptive  provision  is  to  cure  the  whole  condition  of  the 
sinner  induced  by  sin. 

§  58.  FURTHER  REASONS  WHY  HE  MUST  INFLICT  EXACT  RETRIBUTIVE 
PUNISHMENT  ON  SINNERS  AS  THEY  DESERVE,  UNLESS  HE  CAN  SAVE 
THEM  THROUGH  A  SUBSTITUTION. 

As  God  created  all  moral  natures  with  His  law  in  and  dictated 
to  them  by  their  practical  reason,  and  established  by  conscience 
with  its  intuitive  affirmations  of  desert  of  reward  or  of  punishment 
by  obeying  or  disobeying  for  sanctions;  and  as  He  thus  instituted 
His  moral  government  in  them,  He  not  only  constituted  them  a 
universal  ethical  society,  but  by  necessarily  putting  Himself  into  it 
and  being  its  Ruler,  He  must  be  responsible  before  His  own  con- 
science for  securing  to  Himself  and  the  loyal  of  them  the  due  of 
retributive  suffering  from  sinners,  which  justice  in  them  all,  in  the 
law,  and  in  His  government  demands.  As  He  is  eternally  identified 
with  the  society  and  its  Head,  He  must  have  infinite  rights,  dues, 
interests,  and  concerns  in  and  from  it;  and  justice,  therefore,  has 
everlasting  demands  upon  each  and  all  in  it,  or  in  revolt  from  it  in 
respect  to  Him,  both  as  a  Person  and  as  sustaitiing  to  thetn  all  the  rela- 
tions He  does  as  their  Maker,  Proprietor,  Preserver,  Benefactor,  and 
Ruler.  Sin  not  only  robs  Him  of  the  moral  love  due  Him  naturally 
as  a  Person,  and  morally  as  absolutely  good  and  deserving  the 
greatest  possible  gratitude,  honor,  reverence,  and  all  obedience,  but 
it  intrinsically  and  practically  denies  and  wars  against  all  His 
authority,  and  all  His  rights  to  moral  love  and  that  can  belong  to  it 
in  action.  Sinners  therefore  owe  Him  a  correlative  due  of  suffering 
immeasurably  greater  than  to  all  other  beings,  and  His  claim  against 


94  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

them  for  it  is  correspondingly  greater  than  that  of  all  others  for 
what  is  due  to  them.  His  relations  to  all,  and  His  responsibility  to 
all  the  loyal,  existing,  and  to  be  created  in  all  futurity,  make  it 
impossible  that  He  should  abandon  this  claim  and  leave  it  unse- 
cured. To  do  so,  He  would  war  against  His  own  law  and  govern- 
ment founded  in  His  own  nature  and  theirs,  and  thus  subvert  His 
whole  character.  As  His  claim  and  due  are  of  the  very  essence  of 
justice,  which  is  the  bond  and  clamp  of  the  intelligent  universe,  and 
as  essential  to  it  as  the  attraction  of  gravitation  is  to  the  material 
universe,  how  can  He  disregard  them  in  any  degree  or  respect? 

As  it  respects  the  universal  holy  society,  a  shuddering  terror  might 
well  sieze  it,  if  it  found  that  God  would  leave  the  least  jot  of  His 
own  or  their  just  due  from  sinners  unsecured  in  some  way.  For,  to 
do  so  would  be  an  arbitrary  negation  by  Him  of  ethical  justice  to 
them,  according  to  which  as  a  precedent,  He  might  wholly  and  for- 
ever disregard  it,  and  make  injustice  the  principle,  or  want  of  it,  of 
His  treatment  of  them  all.  For,  as  justice  is  the  great  universally 
social  principle,  injustice,  its  opposite,  must  be  equally  universally 
dissocial  and  rife  with  conflicts,  wrongs,  and  wars.  As  every  penal 
claim  of  God  is  also  one  of  the  whole  society  under  Him,  and  as 
every  due  of  penal  suffering  to  Him  is  alsa  one  to  it,  if  He  should 
leave  any  such  claim  unmet  or  due  unsecured.  He  would  thereby 
sanction  universal  injustice  and  make  caprice  His  only  rule  of  pro- 
cedure, and  outlaw  all  rights,  and  all  His  law.  For,  in  whatever 
way  he  treats  one  transgressor,  He  can,  and  virtually  does,  treat  every 
one;  and  He  would  thus  arbitrarily  discard  all  regard  for  all  the 
claims  and  dues  of  justice  in  the  universe,  not  only  as  retributive, 
but  as  ethical,  because,  in  essence,  they  are  identical.  "^A^ith  justice, 
He  would  necessarily  discard  the  pure  moral  love,  which  the  imper- 
ative of  the  law  makes  due  from  each  and  all  to  each  and  all  accord- 
ing to  their  rights;  and  with  this  its  end,  their  true  and  everlasting 
good.     The  whole  interlinked  trio  go  together. 

§  59.    JUSTICE    THE    SOCIAL    BOND,   TYING    ALL   TO   RENDER    RECIPROCAL 
MORAL  LOVE  ILLUSTRATED. 

Thus,  as  justice  in  the  law  is  the  one  social  bond  which  ties  all 
to  render  moral  love  to  each  other,  if  that  bond  be  broken,  they, 
like  the  material  worlds,  if  their  bond  of  attraction  were  gone,  must 
unsphere  themselves  from  their  Divinely  constituted  correlation  of 
mutual  love,  and,  driven  on  by  their  mere  personal,  self-centering 
tendencies    and    selfishness,    must   rush    lawless    into    all   disorder, 


JUSTICE  THE  SOCIAL  BOND.  95 

collision,  and  anarchy,  each  ruined  and  ruining  forever.  Or,  as 
justice  is  the  one  Divinely-wrought  vase  to  hold  and  preserve  the 
sacred  cordial  of  the  mutual  holy  love  of  all  moral  beings,  if  that 
vase  be  broken  and  not  repaired  by  the  boundless  moral  act  of  its 
Great  Artificer,  its  infinitely  precious  contents  must  flow  away  from 
them  all  forever,  leaving  them  to  perish  with  the  raging  thirst  of  the 
consuming  fever  of  confirmed  selfishness  and  all  its  terrific  progeny 
of  acted  enormities  and  eternal  natural  consequences.  Or,  as  justice 
is  the  heart,  arteries,  and  veins,  which  contain  and  diffuse  the  blood 
of  holy  love  in  the  body  of  the  universal  society,  if  the  heart  or  one 
of  these  main  conveyers  of  that  blood,  which  is  the  moral  and  spir- 
itual life  of  that  body,  be  cut  or  torn  open,  it  must  gush  out  of  it 
and  leave  it  collapsed  in  the  spiritual  death  of  utter  selfishness  and 
all  its  issues  and  trains  of  consequential  curses.  Is  it  possible,  then, 
that,  if  moral  beings  break  that  bond,  fracture  that  Divine  vase,  cut 
or  rend  that  heart  or  its  great  conduits  for  circulating  that  moral 
blood  of  holy  love  through  the  whole  body  of  the  universal  society 
by  sin,  and  cause  all  the  disorder,  conflict,  anarchy,  and  pernicious 
consequences  which  convulse  it,  and  blight,  torment,  and  blast 
themselves  and  each  other  forever,  and  which  afflict  all  the  loyal 
and  even  their  Creator,  subjecting  them  to  grief,  trials,  endurances, 
self-denials,  labors,  and  measureless  sacrifices,  they  will  yet  incur  no 
positive  retribution  from  God  according  to  their  deserts,  or  beyond 
the  mere  personal  natural  consequences  of  their  sin?  Is  it  possible 
that  no  endurance  of  penal  suffering  from  the  hand  of  God  is  due 
from  them  to  Him  and  the  loyal  society  for  the  injustice  and  injury 
they  have  done  to  Him  and  it?  Is  it  possible  that  justice  has  no 
claims,  function,  or  existence  against  wrong-doers?  Is  it  possible 
that,  if  the  bond  it  constitutes  be  not  restored,  the  fractured  vase 
not  repaired,  the  deadly  wound  to  the  heart  and  circulating  appa- 
ratus not  perfectly  healed,  the  harmony  which  that  bond  alone  can 
secure,  the  cordial  of  moral  love  which  can  only  be  kept  in  that 
vase,  the  life-blood  of  that  love  which  can  only  circulate  in  that 
heart  and  apparatus  can,  by  any  means  or  power  in  the  universe,  be 
secured,  kept,  and  circulated,  or  have  existence  in  the  empire  of 
God?  They  have  robbed  that  empire  and  its  Head  of  the  love  they 
owed  it  and  Him;  shall  they  not  J>ay  the  correlative  of  retributive 
suffering  in  its  stead?  They  have  projected  into  it  a  curse  of  malig- 
nity sufficient  to  turn  it  into  a  universal  hell;  shall  they  not  receive 
a  corresponding  curse  of  punishment  in  return?  They  have  tram- 
pled justice,  as  ethical,  into  the  dust  by  substituting  their  selfishness 


96  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

and  its  deeds  for  the  love  it  binds  them  to  render  to  God  and  all 
others;  shall  it  not  spring  out  of  it  again,  as  retributive,  to  smite 
them  back  according  to  their  ill-deserts? 

§  60.    THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ETHICAL  AND  RETRIBUTIVE  JUSTICE  THE  SAME. 

To  answer  such  questions  in  the  negative  is  to  contradict  uni- 
versal conscience;  for  its  voice  in  consciousness  is  even  stronger  for 
retributive  than  for  ethical  justice,  amazingly  strong  as  it  is  for  that, 
as  shown  in  Chapter  II.;  and,  if  men  build  their  ethical  and  theo- 
logical fabrics  professedly  on  psychology,  they  should  accept  and 
adhere  to  all  its  deliveries  alike.  When  they  do  this,  they  will  no 
longer  advocate  and  eulogize  ethical  justice,  as  they  should,  and  then 
turn  round  and  denounce  retributive  as  an  outrage  on  the  sensibil- 
ities of  mankind,  and  at  war  with  the  benevolence  of  God,  when 
moral  reason  is  for  the  latter  equally  as  for  the  former.  Theodore 
Parker,  in  his  sermon  on  "The  Function  and  Place  of  Conscience," 
preached  in  1850  against  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  spoke  thus  of 
ethical  justice — "It  is  the  point  in  morals  common  to  me  and  all 
mankind,  common  to  me  and  God,  common  to  mankind  and  God; 
the  point  where  all  duties  unite — to  myself,  my  brethren,  and  my 
God;  the  point  where  all  interests  meet  and  balance — my  interests, 
those  of  mankind,  and  the  interests  of  God.  When  justice  is  done, 
all  is  harmony  and  peaceful  progress  in  the  world  of  man;  but  when 
justice  is  not  done,  the  reverse  follows — discord  and  confusion;  for 
injustice  is  not  the  point  where  all  duties  and  all  interests  meet  and 
balance,  not  the  point  of  morals  common  to  mankind  and  me,  or  to 
us  and  God."  Truly  and  grandly  said,  but  deeper  truth  than  its 
author  thought.  For,  suppose  justice  is  not  done  by  any  number  of 
moral  beings,  but  injustice,  assailing  all  duties  and  interests  common 
to  God  and  His  rational  universe,  and  setting  discord  and  confusion 
into  action  against  Him  and  it  with  measureless  damage  to  ihem. 
Has  justice  then  no  farther  function  respecting  the  evil-doers  than 
like  some  rightful  and  illustrious  monarch,  deposed  and  confined  by 
his  rebellious  subjects,  who,  still  crazily  fancying  himself  their  sov- 
ereign, persists  in  proclaiming  his  mandates  to  his  mocking  deposers, 
to  act  the  discrowned  and  degraded  part  in  moral  natures  of  con- 
tinually babbling  out  to  them  its  ethical  rights,  demands,  and  man- 
dates, as  if  still  sovereign,  only  to  see  them  disregarded  and  scorned 
by  those  natures  because  it  has  no  power  to  enforce  them  by  deserved 
and  requisite  penal  retributions?  Does  the  fact  chat  the  rebels  and 
scorners  have  trampled  and  flouted  ethical  justice  end  the  matter, 


REPENT  FOR  FORGIVENESS.  97 

SO  that  they  owe  no  endurance  of  retributive  justice  from  God,  as 
due  to  Him  and  His  loyal  society  instead  of  the  love  of  which  they 
have  robbed  Him  and  them,  and  for  the  injury  they  have  done  them 
by  acting  against  it?  Does  conscience  ever  attest  any  such  stu- 
pendous folly  ?  No;  it  attests  with  unsurpassed  positiveness,  as 
already  repeatedly  shown,  that  not  only  guilt  or  desert  of  punish- 
ment, but  that  endless,  is  created  by  all  sin,  and  that  the  endurance 
of  it  by  sinners  is  due  to  God  and  all  holy  beings.  It  is  essential  to 
God's  benevolence  to  secure  this  due,  because  justice  is  social,  and 
what  it  demands  is  His  and  their  everlasting  interest,  concern,  and 
right,  as  the  safeguard  of  their  love,  order,  and  blessedness,  and 
therefore  of  His  own  righteous  character  and  all  the  holy  relations 
between  Him  and  them  forever.  It  is  ethical  justice  in  Him  to 
secure  it,  and  would  be  ethical  injustice  in  Him  not  to  do  so,  because, 
if  He  should  not,  they  would  be  universally,  perpetually,  and  fatally 
wronged  and  ruined,  as  He  wouM  thus  practically  declare  moral 
love  and  its  results  to  them  of  no  importance,  and  show  Himself 
indifferent,  whether  they  mutually  rendered  it  or  not,  and  between 
those  who  did  and  those  who  did  not.  It  is  therefore  absolutely 
incumbent  on  Him  to  punish  all  sinners  as  they  deserve,  or  to  meet 
the  ends  of  retributive  justice  in  their  behalf  by  a  substitution,  which, 
if  they  avail  themselves  of  it,  will  at  least  equally  secure  those  ends 
to  Himself  and  all  loyal  beings,  before  He  can  forgive  and  save  one 
of  them,  even  if  he  should  repent. 

§  61..  NO  SINNERS  EVER  WOULD  OR  COULD  REPENT,  IF  NO  ATONEMENT, 
EVEN  IF  GOD  WOULD  FORGIVE  THEM. 

Men  say,  God  is  infinitely  good  and  merciful,  and  therefore 
would  and  must  forgive  sinners,  if  they  repent  for  that  reason  alone. 
But  the  inference  is  without  foundation  in  the  premise.  For,  with- 
out an  atonement  and  the  grace  manifested  on  its  basis,  they  are 
under  the  law  alone,  and  there  are  no  facts,  truths,  motives,  influ- 
ences, manifestations,  nor  conditions,  either  in  and  from  the  nature 
of  law  and  government,  or  from  God  as  Moral  Governor,  which, 
considering  their  subjective  state  and  objective  liability  to  the  pun- 
ishment their  conscience  tells  them  they  deserve  for  their  sins,  have 
the  least  adaptation  or  tendency  to  bring  them  to  repentance.  All 
there  are  have  directly  the  opposite  tendency.  Repentance  consists 
essentially  in  turning  from  sin,  which  is  selfishness,  to  true  moral, 
complacent  love  to  God  by  an  entire  surrendry  to  Him  in  faith  on 
the  ground  of  His  manifested  mercy  and  grace.     But  sin  separates 


98  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

and  alienates  its  actor  from  Him;  creates  in  conscience  the  sense  of 
guilt  or  desert  of  punishment  from,  and  a  profound  dread  of,  Him; 
makes  its  actor  regard  Him,  not  as  kindly  disposed,  but  as  an 
incensed  adversary  and  punisher;  and  it  therefore  excites  aversion 
and  hostility  of  heart  against  Him,  especially  when  His  holy  char- 
acter, cjaims,  and  relations  to  himself  are  brought  clearly  before 
him.  Conscience,  the  terrible  judge,  condemns  and  dooms  him 
without  a  hint  of  Divine  mercy  or  grace  for  him;  and  thus,  with  his 
guilty  aversion  and  opposition  of  heart  towards  God,  and  without 
hope  of  favor  from  Him,  he  shrinks  from  Him,  and  dislikes  to  retain 
Him  in  knowledge,  or  to  be  pressingly  reminded  of  Him  as  related 
to  himself.  Besides,  the  law  of  habit  increasingly  binds  and  sets 
him  in  this  state  of  sin  and  alienation;  and  there  is  an  intrinsic 
self-delusion,  a  kind  of  sorcery  in  sin,  which  infatuates  its  actor  and 
urges  him  on  in  it,  and  which  increasingly  blinds  his  eyes  to  all 
spiritual  realites,  and  prevents  all  proper  apprehensions  of  them. 
Such  being  the  subjective  state  of  sinners,  which  renders  it  among 
the  most  difficult  of  things  to  bring  them  to  repent,  even  under  all 
the  Divine  manifestations,  revelations,  truths,  motives,  agencies, 
and  influences  of  Christianity,  how  could  they  possibly  be  brought 
to  do  it,  if  without  these,  and  left  entirely  to  themselves  under  the 
law  alone,  by  which  they  are  already  consciously  condemned  and 
doomed?  As  they  could  have  no  ground  of  hope,  because  they 
would  have  no  promises  or  intimations  from  God,  that  He  would  be 
merciful  and  gracious  to  them,  if  they  should  repent,  how,  in  their 
whole  condition,  could  they  possibly  trust  him  as  willing  to  forgive 
them?  and,  if  they  could  not  trust,  how  could  they  love  Him  with 
any  complacency,  or  hope  for  any  favor  from  Him  ?  Men  cannot 
act  morally  without  motives,  without  which  their  will  is  "as  i'dle  as 
a  painted  ship  upon  a  painted  ocean,"  but  in  view  only  of  such  as 
are  before  them,  and  therefore  it  avails  nothing  to  say  they  are  still 
free  agents;  for,  without  an  atonement  and  all  the  redemptive  pro- 
visions, disclosures,  truths,  motives,  agencies,  including  that  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  influences  it  involves,  besides  which  there  are  none 
adapted  to  bring  men  from  the  state  in  which  they  are  to  repentance, 
how  could  they  repent?  The  law  is  without  a  single  motive  in  itself 
to  bring  men  to  repentance,  that  is,  to  renounce  their  selfishness 
and  hostility  to  God  and  to  begin  to  love  Him,  while  its  whole 
bearing  on  them  in  their  subjective  state  renders  it  impossible,  that, 
under  it  alone,  they  ever  would,  or  morally  could,  repent,  if  the 
entire  redemptive  provision  had  not  been  graciously  made  for  them, 


REPENT  FOR  FORGIVENESS. 


99 


including  the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  is  no  less  the  ground 
and  source  of  all  the  necessary  conditions  of  repentance  than  of 
forgiveness.*  No  heathen  ever  could  repent,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
traditions  and  shimmerings  of  redemptive  grace  announced  to  our 
first  parents  in  the  protevangel,  indicated  to  Noah,  and  diffused  to 
the  nations  in  the  reports  they  received  of  God's  dealings  with 
Abraham  and  his  Israelitish  posterity — all  made  effective  by  the 
mighty  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

§  62.    EVEN  IF  THEY    COULD,  IT  WOULD   BE   NO  REPARATION   FOR  THEIR 

SINS. 

But,  assuming  that  men  could  and  would  repent  without  any 
redemptive  provision,  what  reparation  would  that  be  of  the  stupen- 
dous wrong  and  injury  they  have  done  to  God  and  His  loyal  uni- 
verse? How  could  it  restore  justice  to  its  power  to  bind  men  to 
render  to  each  other  the  moral  love  which  it  makes  owed  by  and  due 
to  every  one?  How  could  it  restore  the  broken  bond,  the  fractured 
vase,  the  ruptured  heart,  artery,  or  vein,  arrest  the  pernicious  conse- 
quences sent  out  through  mankind  and  the  intelligent  universe  by 
sin,  and  set  moral  love  and  its  consequences  in  that  universal  and 
perfect  operation,  which  they  would  forever  have  had,  if  they  had 
not  been  so  appallingly  supplanted  and  counteracted  by  sin?  It 
could  do  nothing  of  the  kind,  meet  no  end  of  justice,  and  repair  no 
damage  whatever.  If,  therefore,  God  should  pardon  sinners  and 
treat  them  as  the  obedient  merely  because  they  repent,  and  without 
the  ground  of  a  substitutionary  atonement  for  so  doing.  He  would 
practically  put  universal  conscience,  His  own  creation,  with  its  sense 
of  guilt,  and  its  judicial  condemning  and  dooming  in  them,  and  its 
corresponding  action  in  all  holy  beings  under  ban  as  false,  and 
would  capriciously  and  fatally  outrage  all  moral  nature,  including 
His  own.  He  would  disregard  the  law  in  and  from  it  with  its  justice, 
which  makes  moral  love  owed  by  and  due  to  every  one,  and  thus  dis- 
mantle this  love  of  all  enforcement,  defense,  and  estimation,  con- 
signing it  to  the  mere  option  of  each  actor,  whether  to  render  it  or 
not,  and  leaving  its  end  of  the  true  good  of  moral  beings  like  Jeru- 
salem razed  and  trodden  down  of  the  Gentiles.  He  would  practically 
proclaim  moral  nature  with  its  conscience,  the  law  in  and  from  it 
with  its  justice,  matter,  and  end,  the  love  which  fulfills  its  matter 
with  its  natural  consequences,  the  sin  which  destroys  that  love  and 
its  end  with  its  natural  consequences,  the  everlasting  tendencies  of 

(*)  §  73.  P-  96. 


loa  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

each  of  these  kinds  of  action,  and  all  the  rights,  dues,  debts,  inter- 
ests, concerns,  securities,  and  .necessities  of  Himself  and  His  whole 
loyal  society  forever  such  insignificant  trifles,  that  they  weigh  com- 
paratively nothing  against  the  mere  personal  and  forfeited  interests 
and  concerns  of  a  repentant  sinner  of  whatever  degree,  even  though 
his  enormities  may  have  hurled  myriads  or  millions  into  eternity, 
few  of  them  repentant,  many  of  them  black  with  most,  some  with 
all,  named  and  nameless  crimes  and  vices,  but  the  great  mass  chiefly 
innocent  of  these;  and  though  he  may  have  devastated  nations  and 
continents  and  caused  multiplied  millions  to  cry  to  heaven  with 
immeasurable  anguish  for  just  vengeance.  How  could  God  possibly 
be  just  or  benevolent,  or  not  the  direct  opposite,  if  He  should  dis- 
regard that  cry,  should  pardon  any  such  tiger  of  the  world  or  actor 
of  crime,  vice,  or  wrong  of  any  kind  simply  for  repentance? 

No  essential  truth  or  error  abides  alone  in  human  minds;  but, 
from  a  necessary  logic,  each  belongs  to  a  whole  family  circle  adhe- 
sively united,  and  draws  its  kindred  with  or  after  it.  So,  not  only 
does  this  notion,  that  repentance  is  the  only  requisite  for  the  for- 
giveness of  sinners,  deny  the  necessity  for  and  the  fact  of  an  atone- 
ment, and  involve  all  the  consequent  positions  and  negations 
indicated,  but  it  makes  place  for  itself  and  its  kindred  inventions  by 
evicting  denials  of  staple  truths.  Let  us  here  notice  one  or  more 
of  these  kindred. 

§  (iTy.    POSITION   THAT  GOD  AND  ALL  GOOD   BEINGS   SHOULD  ENTER  INTO 
SYMPATHY  WITH,  AND  GO  TO  COST  FOR,  SINNERS,  LIMITED. 

Some  who  maintain  the  notion  stated  concerning  repentance, 
represent  that  it  is  the  great  business  of  God  and  all  good  beings 
respecting  sinners,  to  enter  themselves  by  voluntary  sympathy  into 
their  bad  condition  and  woes,  and  to  woo,  serve,  endure,  sacrifice, 
and  put  themselves  to  cost  for  them,  no  matter  what  wrong  or 
enormity  of  wickedness  they  may  do.  They  state  this  without  limi- 
tation; and,  as  far  as  God  is  concerned,  they  represent  His  doing 
this  as  the  only  atonement  He  makes.  According  to  the  principle 
as  declared.  He  and  they  should  do  this  for  them  the  more  devot- 
edly, the  worse  they  grow  in  sin  and  the  deeper  they  sink  in  its  dfre 
results.  They  should  do  it  with  superlative  zeal  for  all  of  highest 
bad  eminence,  whose  enormities  of  crime  and  all  wickedness  con- 
vulse, torment,  debauch,  and  curse  their  fellow  men!  The  principle, 
as  they  state  it,  spreads  its  all-embracing  arms  around  the  anti- 
diluvians,  the  Sodomites,  the  Pharaohs,  Csesars,  Herods,  and  Juda? 


FALSE  SYMPATHY  AGAINST  TRUE.  loi 

and  the  murderers  of  our  Lord,  the  Alvas,  the  perpetrators  of  the  St. 
Bartholomew  massacre,  of  the  dragoonades,  and  of  all  the  horrors 
of  the  French  Revolution,  and  all  the  scourges  of  nations  who  find 
their  territories  gardens  and  leave  them  deserts!  Whole  Amazons 
and  Mississippis  of  greatest  sympathy  and  cost  should  be  poured  on 
all  these  and  millions  like  them,  impersonated  pestilences,  earth- 
quakes, famines,  deluges,  and  wars;  and,  with  them,  on  all  the  mil- 
lions of  monsters  of  lust  and  crime,  outrage  and  wrong  of  every 
kind;  while  comparatively  only  brooks  and  dwart  rivers  of  these 
expenditures  should  be  poured  upon  the  multitudes  of  their  mur- 
dered or  living  victims  of  each  sex  and  all  ages!  Such,  in  substance, 
is  a  fair  representation  of  this  principle.  Connected  with  the  notion, 
that  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  are  its  only  retribution,  it  not 
only  requires  God  and  all  good  beings  to  be  absolute  non-resistants 
to  all  bad  ones,  but  to  be  their  everlasting  sympathizers  and  cost- 
payers  in  proportion  to  their  wickedness  and  whole  bad  condition, 
as  if  their  sins  against  God  and  wrongs  or  enormities  against  men 
were  merely  their  calamities,  and  the  sympathy  and  cost  of  God,  of 
all  they  have  wronged  or  outraged,  and  of  all  good  beings  were  only 
or  supremely  due  to  them!  and  for  God  to  render  these  to  them  is 
atonement! 

This  notion  is  a  tangle  of  precious  truth  with  hideous  error,  a 
mixture  of  sacred  honey  with  destructive  poison.  God  enters  Him- 
self into  no  sympathy  with,  and  goes  to  no  cost  for  any  grade  of 
sinners,  especially  those  whose  vices  and  crimes  make  them  the 
pests  of  mankind,  which  in  the  least  conflicts  with  His  punishing 
them  exactly  as  they  deserve  when  the  gracious  probation  He  has 
given  expires,  as  He  often  begins  to  do  in  time.  Nor  should  angels 
or  men.  Rather  should  they  enter  themselves  into  thorough  sym- 
pathy with  all  the  wronged — with  all  good  beings  wronged  with 
them  in  principle,  feelings,  and  interests — and  with  God,  the  benev- 
olent and  just  Ruler  and  Guardian  of  His  intelligent  creatures,  who 
is  transcendently  wronged  and  outraged  in  all  the  wrongs  and  out- 
rages done  to  them.  And,  as  the  magnates  in  sin  and  its  enormities 
never,  or  very  rarely,  repent,  all  others  on  earth  and  all  in  heaven 
should  rejoice  that  they  will  infallibly  receive  the  retribution  they 
deserve;  and  all  sympathizers  with  the  victims  of  their  crimes 
rhould  put  themselves  to  all  requisite  cost  to  bring  them  to  deserved 
justice  on  earth.  If  we  trace  history,  sacred  and  secular,  from  its 
beginning  till  now,  and  aggregate  into  one  catalogue  all  the  human 
monsters  ot  the  successive  generations  in  every  part  of  the  world, 


I02  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

who,  as  monarchs  or  rulers  of  empires,  kingdoms,  or  republics,  or 
those  in  some  way  subordinate  to  or  connected  with  them;  or,  as 
conspirators,  traitors,  rebels,  usurpers,  tyrants,  mighty  conquerors, 
or  commanders  of  armies,  or  as  their  subordinates,  agents,  and 
tools;  or  as  some  Popes,  and  inquisitors  and  all  persecutors  who 
have  blackened  its  pages  with  their  recorded  crimes,  vices,  and  enor- 
mities; and  if  we  notice  and  realize  the  measureless  evils  and  mis- 
eries inflicted  and  caused  by  each  and  all  of  them,  male  and  female, 
on  others,  whether  on  individuals,  on  a  few,  on  hundreds,  on  thou- 
sands, or  on  millions — on  a  single  nation,  or  on  many,  or  even  on 
vast  portions  of  continents — of  brief,  or  of  protracted,  continuance, 
even  for  centuries,  or  perpetual — evils  and  miseries  often  including 
incalculable  havoc,  not  only  of  lives  by  wars  and  otherwise,  but  of 
treasures,  and  of  the  products  of  the  arts  and  labors  of  vast  popu- 
lations through  numerous  generations  and  ages: — if  we  thus  trace, 
notice,  and  realize,  how,  I  ask,  is  it  possible  that  the  benevolent  and 
righteous  God  could  enter  Himself  into  any  sympathy  with,  or  go  to 
any  cost  for,  the  authors  of  such  stupendous  crimes  and  evils,  which 
would  in  the  least  conflict  with  punishing  them  exactly  as  they 
deserve  when  their  probation  is  ended?  or,  that  angels  could,  or 
even  the  mass  of  mankind,  though  consciously  sinners  themselves? 
But,  besides  these  magnates  in  wickedness,  there  have  always 
been  multitudes  in  inferior  spheres  equally  apostate  from  all  good 
and  rank  in  vice  and  criminality — murderers,  parricides,  matricides, 
fratricides,  killers  of  wives,  of  husbands,  of  offspring,  even  of 
embryos,  and  assassins — pirates,  robbers,  burglars,  thieves,  swin- 
dlers, forgers,  cheats,  gamblers,  and  such  like — liars,  deceivers, 
impostors,  slanderers,  treacherous  dissemblers,  perfidious  injurers, 
underminers,  hypocrites,  perjurers,  blasphemers,  profane  deniers  of 
and  scoffers  at  God  and  His  Gospel,  and  persecutors — crowds  of 
men  and  women  sunk  in  all  the  pollutions  and  crimes  of  licentious- 
ness— drunkards  and  drunkard-makers,  and  ingr<ates  who  repay  good 
with  evil.  Considering  all  the  crimes  and  enormities  of  all  such",  the 
destruction  of  life  and  well-being  they  cause,  the  hosts  of  their  vic- 
tims, the  millions  of  souls  blighted  and  forever  ruined  by  them,  the 
incalculable  injury  and  agony  caused  to  untold  millions  in  time,  the 
countless  cunents  of  corruption,  degradation,  shame,  desolation, 
and  despair  they  originate  or  make  worse,  and  the  impiety  and  out- 
rage they  commit  against  God  and  all  that  is  pure,  just,  and  good 
on  earth  and  in  heaven; — and  considering,  on  the  other  hand,  what 
all  these  dark  legions  of  men  and  women  would  have  been  to  them- 


SYMPATHY  AND  COST  FOR  EVIL  BEINGS,  LIMITED.        103 

selves,  to  the  world,  to  the  whole  everlasting  society,  and  to  God,  if 
they  had  lived  just  and  holy  lives,  and  all  the  souls  they  would  have 
been  agents  in  saving,  of  all  of  which  they  have  robbed  God  and 
His  loyal  society  forever  in  addition  to  all  their  acted  enormities — 
considering  all  these,  by  what  possibility  could  God,  that  society, 
or  even  mankind  not  of  them,  so  withdraw  and  alienate  sympathy 
with,  and  cost  for,  all  their  victims,  all  even  of  themselves  not  yet 
drawn  beyond  recovery  into  their  whirlpools  of  wickedness,  and  all 
liable  to  be  their  victims  in  this  world  and  forever,  as  to  expend 
these  upon  them  in  any  sense  which  would  conflict  in  the  least  with 
their  subjection  to  the  punishment  they  deserve  when  their  proba- 
tion is  ended,  or  with  such  beginnings  of  it  in  time  as  men  find  it 
practicable  to  inflict? 

But  mankind  are  all  sinners,  and  all  sin  is  opjiosition  to  and 
wrong  against  God  and  all  His  society,  being  in  smaller  measure 
the  same  in  principle,  effects,  and  tendencies  as  in  the  appalling 
measures  already  considered;  and  they  all  deserve  punishment 
according  to  the  degrees  of  their  guilt.  Neither  God  nor  other  holy 
beings,  therefore,  can  enter  themselves  into  any  sympathy  with,  nor 
go  to  any  cost  for,  any  of  them,  except  within  the  same  limits  which 
confine  them  respecting  the  worst  of  the  race.  For  the  sympathy 
intended  is  not  mere  natural  pity  or  compassion,  which  is  involun- 
tary, but  is  voluntary,  and  the  cost  intended  is  an  expenditure  of 
effort  and  sacrifice  for  its  objects  to  bring  them  back  to  obedience 
to  God,  and  both  must  terminate  towards  the  incorrigible  when 
their  probation  ends.  A  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  world  is  a 
sufficient  antidote  to  all  this  sentimental  invention  of  sympathy  and 
outlay  of  cost  beyond  that  bound. 

The  true  view  of  God's  real  sympathy  for  mankind  will  be 
expanded  in  the  sequel,  and  we  only  indicate  it  here.  The  rule  of 
its  outgo  is,  that  its  largest,  fullest  exercise  or  current  is  towards  the 
innocent  or  least  guilty,  especially  when  and  in  proportion  as  they 
are  subjected  to  wrongs  and  sufferings  by  others,  are  beset  with 
temptations,  particularly  if  resisting  them,  or  are  compassed  about 
with  difficulties  and  dangers — the  more  in  every  case,  if  they  are 
His  children  and  ask  His  interposition  in  their  behalf.  But  the 
strength  of  its  outgo  towards  every  worse  class  diminishes,  till, 
towards  the  worst,  nothing  of  it  remains  but  that  Divine  pity  or 
compassion  which  His  all-perfect  nature  must  feel  for  them  as  irre- 
claimable and  necessitating  the  punishment  they  deserve  from  Him. 
This  rule  is  precisely  the  same  for  all  good  beings,  and  is  the  one  for 


104  '     THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

His  own  and  their  going  to  cost  for  them.     Any  other  rule  makes  a 
moral  system  and  moral  government  impossible. 

§  64.    NO  CHANGE  OF  WILL  AND  CHARACTER  BY  OMNIPOTENCE,  NO  ANNI- 
HILATION, AND  THE  RADICAL  FAULT  OF  ALL  THESE  NOTIONS. 

Before  concluding  this  Chapter,  I  must  glance  at  two  other 
notions  sometimes  advanced  in  opposition  to  positive  future  and 
endless  retributive  punishment.  One  of  them  is,  that  God  will 
omnipotently  change  the  perverse  will  and  character  of  those  who 
die  in  sin  to  righteous  at,  or  in  connection  with,  death,  and  make  them 
all  blessed  forever.  As  if  either  sin  or  obedience  which  consist  in 
the  choices  of  moral  beings  which  mold  each  one's  character,  could 
possibly  be  either  abolished  or  created  by  physical  omnipotence, 
and  were  not  necessarily  their  own  work  in  complying  with  or  resist- 
ing motives  and  influences!  But,  if  God  can  thus  change  sinners 
to  saints,  when  dying  or  dead,  by  omnipotence,  why  not  while  they 
live?  Why  did  He  not  so  change  the  first  pair  immediately  after 
their  fall,  and  before  they  had  offspring,  and  thus  prevent  the  pro- 
pagation of  a  race  of  sinners?  Why  has  He  not  thus  excluded  sin 
and  all  its  measureless  train  of  curses  and  woes,  not  only  from  earth, 
but  from  the  total  universe,  and  compelled  universal  holiness  and 
blessedness?  What  moral  system  is  possible  with  a  principle  so 
preposterous  and  pernicious  to  all  accountability,  according  to 
which,  there  would  be  no  difference,  beyond  this  life  of  condition  or 
destiny,  between  the  righteous  and  the  wicked,  the  best  and  the  worst 
while  in  it  ?  Even  the  semblance  of  a  probation  or  plan  of  redemp- 
tion is  out  of  the  question;  and  it  matters  not  how  men  live  and  act 
before  they  die. 

The  other  notion  is,  that  God  will  annihilate  all  the  incorrigible, 
despite  the  fact  that  He  made  them  in  His  own  immortal  image. 
Why,  then,  did  He  not  annihilate  the  fallen  angels  when  they  sinned, 
and  thus  prevent  all  their  inconceivable  deviltry,  especially  that 
which  they  have  done  to  man?  The  fact  that  He  did  not  makes  it 
certain,  along  with  what  Scripture  teaches  respecting  their  destiny 
and  that  of  incorrigible  human  sinners,  that  He  will  not  then.  Anni- 
hilation of  moral  natures  is  plainly  abhorrent  to  His  great  plan 
respecting  them. 

But  the  radical  fault  of  all  the  notions  invented  against  future 
and  endless  punishment,  except  this  last,  is,  that,  by  discarding  the 
ethical  justice  of  the  law  and  thus  reducing  the  moral  love  it  requires 
to  a  mere  personal  matter,  they  reduce  sin  to  the  same,  and,  with  it. 


NO  CHANGE  OF  WILL  OR  CHARACTER.  105 

its  penalty  to  its  mere  natural  consequences.  They  thus  equally 
reduce  the  motives  to  repentance  and  against  sin;  and,  when 
their  advocates  add  that  sinners  will  have  a  probation  after  death, 
in  which  they  can  repent  when  they  will,  they  reduce  and  enervate 
them  to  mere  trifles,  and  lead  men,  set  in  sin,  to  go  on  impenitent 
through  life  under  the  infatuation  that  they  can  repent  beyond  it, 
and  will  not  be  punished  before  they  do.  But  the  adherents  of  all 
these  fictions  constantly  assume  and  assert  that,  if  God  should  not 
treat  sinners  as  they  teach,  but  should  inflict  retributive  punishment 
upon  them  as  they  deserve,  He  would  violate  some  supreme  obliga- 
tion, do  some  stupendous  wrong,  be  heartless  and  cruel  instead  of  a 
good  being  and  Fa/her,  and  would  deserve  the  condemnation  and 
denunciation,  instead  of  the  love  and  honor,  of  all  His  rational 
creatures! — we  add,  especially  of  persistent  sinners!  Hence,  if  they 
profess  belief  in  any  atonement,  it  is  not  in  a  vicarious  one,  for  this 
they  denounce  because  it  implies  retributive  justice,  but  in  what 
they  call  a  moral  one,  which  is  none  at  all,  but  is  intrinsically  non- 
moral  and  contra-moral.  No  so-called  atonement  can  be  truly 
moral,  which  discards  positive  retributions  from  God,  as  demanded 
by  the  nature  of  moral  beings,  the  social  and  just  law  dictated  by 
it,  and  the  judicial  sentence  of  conscience,  that  sin  deserves  and 
demands  such  retribution.  These  demands  require  perfect  justice 
to  be  maintained  throughout  the  universal  society,  as  the  conserv- 
ing condition  of  all  true  moral  love  and  blessedness  in  it. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  preceding  discussion  is,  that,  by 
the  law  as  social  and  just,  and  for  its  end,  all  sinners  must  suffer 
exact  retributive  punishment  according  to  the  measure  of  each  one's 
actual  ill-desert  as  God  sees  it.  From  this,  they  have  no  possible 
way  of  escape  by  anything  they  or  any  mere  creatures  in  the  uni- 
verse can  do  to  retrieve  them.  "Die  they  or  justice  must,"  both  as 
ethical  and  as  retributive,  and  both  in  God  Himself  and  in  His  uni- 
versal society;  and  with  it  all  moral  love  and  good  in  Him  and  it 
forever.  A  substitutional  atonement  is  absolutely  necessary  as  a  ground 
of  forgiveness  and  all  salvation  for  sinners.  Without  it  all  mankind 
are  forever  lost. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Conjirmation  of  the  foregoing  exposition  of  the  law  in  moral 
natures,  and  of  retributions,  by  tJie  teachings  of  both  the  Testaments 
of  Scripture.  God  not  merely  a  Father,  but  has  and  administers  a  uni- 
versal moral  government.     N'o  probation  after  death. 

§  65.    SCRIPTURAL  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  LAW  IN  THE   MORAL   NATURE  OF 
MAN,   WHAT  AND  WHAT   NOT. 

The  remarkable  passage  in  Rom.  2:14-16  positively  teaches, 
that  all  Gentiles,  and,  of  course,  all  mankind,  are,  by  their  nature, 
"a  law  unto  themselves,"  "showing  the  work  of  the  law  written  in 
their  hearts" — that  is,  that  the  law  in  them  is  essentially  identical 
wi-th  \\\2i\.  declared z.^^  legislatively  applied  to  Israel  in  the  Theocratic 
government  instituted  over  them.  The  Apostle's  argument,  from 
verse  9  onward,  demands  this  identity,  as  does  the  nature  of  the 
case.  This  is  plain,  if  we  supply  in  the  passage  the  word  declared 
or  revealed  where  it  is  implied.  "For  when  Gentiles,  having  no 
[revealed]  law,  do  by  nature  the  things  of  the  [revealed]  law,  these, 
having  no  [revealed]  law,  are  a  law  unto  themselves:  Who  show  the 
work  of  the  [revealed]  law  written  in  their  hearts  " — that  is,  not  on 
tables  of  stone,  as  that  was.  The  law,  then,  being  thus  innate  in  the 
spiritual  nature  of  man,  is  no  Kantian  imperative  without  a  rule  of 
action  having  a  matter  and  an  end,  a  kind  of  hook  inserted  in  it,  on 
which  each  person  may  suspend  any  maxim  he  may  deem  fit  for  law 
universal,  thus  making  him  law-maker  as  to  all  executive  action  for 
himself  and  the  intelligent  universe!  Nor  is  it  an  imperative  in 
each  one  to  do  that,  and  that  only,  which  he  deems  due  to  his  own 
spiritual  excellence  or  dignity,  in  which  also  there  is  no  rule  other 
than  his  own  notion  or  judgment  of  what  is  becoming  to  himself, 
and  which,  therefore,  has  no  social  character,  enjoins  pure  egois?n, 
and,  like  the  former,  makes  him  deem  his  own  judgment  or  action  of 
what  is  becoming  to  himself  the  rule  of  all  executive  action  for  all 
others.  Nor  is  it  an  imperative  in  each  to  love  the  true,  the  beau- 
tiful, and  the  good  for  their  own  sakes.     For  these  are  not  identical 


SCRIPTURAL  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  LAW.  107 

with  God  and  other  moral  beings;  are  not  ultimate  ends  of  moral 
action,  the  first  two  of  them  being  affirmed  by  reason,  as  all  first 
truths  are,  and  the  last  of  them,  virtue,  being  acted  for  an  end 
beyond  itself;  are  not  ends  in  themselves;  cannot  consequently  be 
loved  for  their  own  sakes;  and,  if  they  could,  there  could  be  no 
virtue  in  so  loving  them.  Nor  is  it  an  idea  of  right,  or  of  any  kind, 
conceived  as  a  rule  of  action  and  different  from  the  revealed  law; 
for  no  idea  can  be  a  rule  of  action  or  a  law,  and,  if  it  could,  it  must 
be  identical  with  the  one  law  declared  in  Scripture  and  written  in 
human  hearts.  Nor  is  it  a  rule  for  mere  utilitayian  action.  Such 
action  is  always  determined  by  judgment;  is  only  a  means  to  accom- 
plish a  chosen  end  or  ends,  which  is  or  are  not  otherwise  binding; 
is  therefore  always  merely  executive  and  to  be  acted  only  when 
deemed  useful;  and  is  mere  prudence.  For  judgment  can  prescribe 
no  end,  law,  or  obligation.  Moral  reason  alone  prescribes  these;  and 
true  virtue  is  willing  or  choosing  its  end  for  what  it  is  in  itself  accord- 
ing to  its  law  and  obligation.  Nor  is  it  a  rule  for  mere  sentiment  or 
feeling  of  any  kind;  for  no  such  rule  is  possible.  They  are  in  them- 
selves involuntary,  and  there  is  no  law  or  obligation  to  them.  When 
the  will  is  submitted  to  the  law,  they  are  attendant  incentives  to  its 
steadfastness  and  to  benevolent  actions;  but  when  it  is  submittetl  to 
their  sway,  there  is  no  virtue  in  complying  with  it,  but  selfishness, 
often  developed  in  opposition  to  law,  justice,  government,  order, 
and  public  good.  Rejecting  all  these  mutually  clashing  notions  as 
neither  truly  psychological  nor  Scriptural,  we  believe  that  there  is  a 
truer  psychology  and  a  deeper  philosophy  of  man  and  law,  of  virtue 
and  sin,  and  of  the  way  to  become  and  be  really  virtuous  in  the 
Bible,  especially  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  than  can  be  found  in 
all  the  moral  philosophies  which  have  been  written  in  any  land  or 
age.  We  believe  that,  in  the  teachings  of  Christ,  of  His  Apostles, 
taught  by  Him  and  the  inspiring  Spirit,  and  of  all  "the  holy  men  of 
old,  who  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost"  respecting 
the  law,  the  guilt  of  violating  it,  retributive  reward  and  punishment, 
the  government  of  God,  justice,  mercy,  faith,  and  the  whole  moral 
condition  of  man,  we  have  the  real  truth,  and  what  a  correct  psy- 
chology will  always  find  substantially  in  consciousness. 

What,  then,  do  these  unerring  teachers  tell  us  respecting  the 
matter,  end,  and  justice  of  the  law,  which  is  written  first  in  all 
human  hearts,  and  then  on  the  pages  of  the  inspired  Book?  The 
substance  of  the  Decalogue  is  thus  declared  by  our  Lord,  quoting 
from  Lev.  19:18  and  Deut.  6:5 — ''Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 


io8  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength, 
and  with  all  thy  mind;  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself  (Mat.  22:37-40; 
Mark  12:30,  31;  Luke  10:27);  and  He  added,  that  "upon  these  two 
commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets" — that  is,  they 
embody  the  essential  principle  of  the  whole  legislation  of  God  in  the 
Old  Testament.  He  also  expresses  it  as  requiring  perfect  ethical 
justice  in  the  golden  words — "Therefore  all  things  whatsoever  ye 
would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them"  (Mat.  7: 
12;  Luke  6:31),  adding — "This  is  the  law  and  the  prophets."  That 
is,  the  whole  legislation  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  involves  the 
principle  of  perfect  ethical  justice,  so  that  all  true  moral  love  is 
required  to  be  just  love — a  love  due  from  and  to  each  other  and  to 
God,  and  acted  in  all  doings  of  each  towards  every  other  one.  In 
perfect  accordance,  the  Apostle  Paul  says — "Love  worketh  no  ill  to 
his  neighbor:  love  therefore  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  law"  (Rom.  13: 
10;  see  the  two  preceding  verses),  thus  making  it  embrace  pure 
ethical  justice;  and  he  says  again — "For  the  whole  law  {?,  fulfilled 
in  one  word,  even  in  this;  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself," 
which  love  is  perfect  justice  (Gal.  5:14).  So  runs  the  whole  current 
of  Scriptural  teachings  respecting  the  law  and  obedience  to  it;  and 
it  proves  that  the  law  is  concrete  and  social,  binding  mankind  and 
all  moral  beings  by  its  intrinsic  quality  of  justice  to  render  its  matter 
of  pure  moral  love  to  each  other  equally  as  to  self,  and  to  God  abso- 
lutely, for  its  end  of  the  greatest  good  of  each,  and  to  render  this  as 
what  is  reciprocally  due  or  just,  and  therefore  7-ighteous.  As  far  as 
this  obedient  love  is  moral,  it  is  voluntary  and  designed,  and  consists 
in  freely  willijig  or  choosing  the  good  of  its  objects  for  their  sakes. 
It  is  unselfish,  disinterested,  embraces  all  righteousness;  and,  because 
it  is  just,  it  is  impartial,  and,  in  principle,  universal.  But,  while 
morally  consisting  in  free  action  of  the  will,  yet,  according  to  that 
correlation  of  faculties  with  which  all  rational  creatures  are  consti- 
tuted, it  always  evokes  from  the  sensibility  and  expends  all  con- 
gruous emotions  upon  its  objects;  and  it  directs  and  molds  the 
thoughts  and  whole  mental  action  in  relation  to  them.  It  should  be 
as  consummate  as  possible  towards  God,  and  towards  our  fellow 
men  equally  as  towards  ourselves.  The  expression  '^  as  thyself'^ 
shows  that  each  one  is  required  by  the  law  to  choose  his  own  good 
or  love  himself  morally,  not  selfishly,  and,  because  his  love  of  him- 
self is  known  to  him  by  his  own  consciousness,  and  is  thus  a  con- 
stant meditivi  of  knowing  that  due  to  others,  to  make  it  the  measure 
and  standard  of  that. 


MORAL  LOVE. 


109 


§  (id.    NO  OTHER   VIRTUE    THAN    MORAL    LOVE;    THIS    THE  SAME  IN  GOD, 
ANGELS,  AND  SAINTS. 

There  are  those  who  maintain  that  love  is  not  the  only  virtue, 
and  that  there  are  others.  If  they  mean  merely  instinctive,  emo- 
tional, naturally  affectional,  or  sentimental  love,  they  are,  in  a  sense, 
right;  for  in  neither  of  these  senses  is  it  moral  love  at  all.  But,  if 
they  mean  moral  love,  which  is  that  required  by  the  law,  set  forth 
throughout  the  Scriptures,  and  specially  asserted  in  the  teachings 
of  Christ  and  His  Apostles,  they  are  certainly  mistaken;  for  one 
main  fact  thus  rooted  and  reiterated  is,  that  it  is  the  one  only  real 
virtue  in  itself,  the  one  only  obedience  to  or  fulfillment  of  the  law, 
the  one  only  bond  of  perfectness,  the  one  only  pure  ethical  justice 
or  righteousness,  the  one  only  generic  virtue,  or  right  moral  heart, 
out  of  which  all  known  good  acts  or  doings  proceed,  and  from  which 
no  consciously  bad  ones  can,  (I.  Cor.  13;  all  the  passages  quoted 
above;  I.  John  3:4-10;  and  the  whole  current  of  Scripture).  What 
could  be  taught  more  conclusively  than  that,  besides  moral  love, 
there  is  and  can  be  no  other  virtue  in  any  moral  sense,  none  which 
does  not  spring  from  it  as  its  vital  source,  as  the  branch  does  from 
the  originating  vitalizing  trunk?  Do  the  asserters  of  other  virtues 
than  moral  love  mean  particular  species  or  modes  of  action  which  are 
not  included  and  enjoined  in  the  Thou  shall  love  of  the  epitomies  of 
the  two  tables  of  the  law,  both  quoted  from  the  Old  Testament  by 
our  Lord  and  His  Apostles,  and  which  therefore  are  not  done  from* 
but  are  entirely  separate  from  and  independent  of,  this  love?  In 
Rom.  13:8-10,  the  Apostle  distinctly  declares  that  all  the  command- 
ments of  the  second  table  of  the  law,  and,  by  the  nature  of  the  case 
at  least,  if  not  by  intention,  that  all  others  whatever,  which  enjoin 
duties  of  man  to  man,  are  summed  up  in  the  epitome  of  that  table, 
"Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself;  "  and  that  "love  worketh 
no  ill  to  his  neighbor:  therefore  love  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  law." 
The  same  thing  is  clearly  taught,  at  least  by  necessary  implication, 
in  I.  Cor.  13,  in  Gal.  5:14,  and  in  other  places.  How,  then,  can 
there  possibly  be  any  other  virtues  than  are  included  in,  or  proceed 
from,  this  ethical  soul  of  all? 

"  In  some  fair  body  thus  the  informing  soul 
With  spirit  feeds,  with  vigor  fills  the  whole, 
Each  motion  guides,  and  every  nerve  sustains; 
Itself  unseen,  but  in  the  effects  remains." 

— Pope,  Essay  on  Criticism,  Part  /. ,  lines  "jd-So. 

Are  not  "  all  deeds  of  the  law,"  all  moralities  without  this  either 
actions  of  custom,  "dead  works,"  or  Pharisaic  legalities  or  hypoc- 


no  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

risies  ?  It  is  customary  in  common  use  to  call  different  exhibitions 
of  character  virtues,  some  even  which  are  not  really  moral.  In  the 
same  way,  different  modes  of  acting  out  and  manifesting  moral  love 
are  and  may  be  called  virtues.  But  they  are  such,  not  in  themselves 
apart  from  this  love,  but  as  its  fruits  or  emanations;  and  all  the 
moral  life  and  worth  in  them  are  from  it,  the  mother  from  God  of 
all  specific  actions  which  are  of  truly  right  moral  quality.  Unless 
it  can  be  shown  that  there  are  actions  tiud  modes  of  action  which 
are  not  required  by  the  law,  and  not  produced  and  inspired  by  the 
love  it  enjoins,  but  are  wholly  apart  from  and  independent  of  it,  and 
yet  are  somehow  really. moral,  it  is  idle  to  say  there  are  other  vir- 
tues besides  love.     Scripture  makes  no  mistake  in  its  teachings. 

Such  is  the  law  written  essentially  in  the  hearts  of  men,  but  with 
clear  distinctness  in  the  Scriptures.  That  it  is  in  the  nature  of  God, 
they  clearly  teach.  How  else  could  He  be  love,  or  good,  just,  right- 
eous, holy,  or  merciful?  How  else  could  He  appeal  to  Israel  to 
judge  whether  His  ways  are  equal  ur  just? — could  justice  and  judg- 
ment be  the  habitation  of  His  throne? — could  He  be  a  moral 
nature? — could  mankind  be  such  natures  by  being  created  in  His 
image  ? — could  they,  by  rendering  the  love  required  by  the  law,  be 
perfect  even  as  He  is  perfect? — could  He  declare  the  law,  and  have 
a  moral  government? — or  could  He  deserve  praise  and  glory  for 
His  character  and  whole  conduct  from  all  moral  beings  ?  That  it  is 
in  the  nature  of  angels  is  shown  by  the  facts,  that  some  of  them 
sinned  and  are  reserved  unto  judgment;  that  they  are  to  be  judged 
by  the  saints;  that  some  of  them  do  the  will  of  God  and  are  holy; 
that  they  were  commanded  to  worship  our  Lord  at  His  advent  into 
the  world,  and  are  all  made  subject  unto  Him;  that  they  are  all 
ministering  spirits  [not  of  dead  men]  sent  forth  to  minister  to  the 
heirs  of  salvation;  that  they  are  represented  as  doing  God's  will  in 
high  Providential  missions  from  the  antiquities  of  time  to  its  end; 
and  that  they  are  to  be  forever  associated  with  the  saints  around  the 
throne  in  heaven  in  worshipping,  serving,  and  praising  God  and  the 
Lamb.  The  law  is  thus  the  social  bond  and  constitution  by  which 
all  moral  beings,  existing  and  to  exist  in  all  futurity,  are  combined 
into  one  grand,  universal,  everlasting  moral  system  and  society. 
All  obedience  to  this  law  being  social,  is  that,  therefore,  to  which 
this  whole  society  has  a  right  from  each  of  its  menibers;  and  sin  is 
anti-social,  as  it  is  injustice  and  wrong  against  the  whole,  an  actui.1 
robbing  it,  with  God  at  its  head,  of  its  supreme  right  and  due. 


POSITIVE  MORAL  GOVERNMENT.  x\\ 

§67.    GOD   HAS  A   POSITIVE    MORAL   GOVERNMENT,   AND   NOT  A  MERELY 

PATERNAL   ONE. 

That  God  has  a  positive  moral  government  over  all  created 
moral  beings,  or  is  their  Moral  Governor  and  Guardian,  as  He  must 
be  if  He  has  a  law,  is  prodigally   taught  in  the   Bible.     Very  few 
things  are  taught  in  it  with  greater  profusion.     It  is  as  if  God  fore- 
saw, and,  in  giving  His  Word,  designed  by  this  profusion  to  forestall, 
the  attempts  of  the  numbers  who  are  constantly  endeavoring  to  get 
rid  of  this  radically  important  fact  as  somehow  inconsistent  with 
His  goodness,  and  are  declaring  that  He  is  simply  a  Father,  has 
only  a  paternal  government,  and  deals  with  and  treats  each  of  His 
offspring  without  regard  to  any  rights,   claims,  dues,   interests,  or 
concerns  of  Himself  and  of  His  loyal  universal  society,  as  affected 
by  their  character  and  conduct  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  His  treat- 
ment of  them  on  the  other.     Constantly  harping  on  this  one  string 
of  His  Fatherhood,  and  representing  His  love  for  mankind  as  mere 
natural   affection,   like    that  of   human   fathers,   or  even    mothers, 
instead  of  moral  conformity  to  the  everlasting  social  law  in  both 
Him  and  them,  they  deny,  sometimes  even  contemptuously,  that 
He  is  a  Ruler  having  a  moral  government  over  all,  and  maintain 
that  His  only  government  over  them  consists  in  the  self-acting  laws 
of  their  own  nature!     As  if  laws,  either  natural  or  moral,  ever  exe- 
cuted themselves!     Accordingly,   they   deny    that,   in   devising   the 
measure  of  human  redemption,  it  was  any  part  of  His  design  to 
secure  governmental   or  social    ends   for    Himself  and    His   loyal 
society  wronged  by  sinners,  and  assert  that  it  was  solely  to  tvin 
men  from  sin,  and  so  to  save  them  from  the  rack  of  these  automatic 
laws.     The  train  and  head  of  this  comet,  sweeping  for  some  years 
past  specially  athwart  the  face  of  the  theological  heavens,  demand 
each  other;  and  it  was  for  the  sake  of  the  train  that  the  head  was 
invented.    But  so  insubstantial  and  tenuous  are  they  both,  that  all  the 
everlasting  lights  in  those  heavens  shine  through  them,  as  through 
gauze,  bright  still  to  all  clear-seeing  eyes;  and,  when  soon  the  gauze 
shall  have  flitted  away,  those  all-glorious  lights  will  appear  brighter 
than  ever  before.     How  adverse  to  the  psychological  facts  concern- 
ing the  law  written  in  the  heart  the  tenuous  vagrant  is,  we  believe 
we  have  shown;  that  it  is  equally  adverse  to  revelation  we  hope  to 
show  in  the  sequel.     It  is  certainly  surprising  that  the  assumption 
that  God  is  the  Father  of  mankind  as  His  creatures.,  and  especially 
in  sin,  should  be  arrayed  against  the  doctrine  that  He  is  the  Moral 
Governor  of  all  rational  creatures;  for  neither  is  there  a  shadow  of 


112  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

contradiction  between  the  two,  if  the  assumption  were  true  as  made, 
nor  is  it  affirmed  in  Scripture  that  it  is  true.  What  does  it  teach  on 
these  two  points? 

§  dZ.    THAT    GOD  IS   THE   FATHER  OF  MANKIND  AS   CREATURES    NOT 
TAUGHT  IN  THE   SCRIPTURES. 

In  the  first  place,  this  assumption  has  no  support  in  the  Old 
Testament.  Should  any  point  to  Mai.  2:10 — "  Have  we  not  all  one 
Father?  hath  not  one  God  created  us?"  —  as  supporting  it,  the 
reply  is,  the  context  shows  that  the  prophet  asked  these  questions 
with  reference,  not  to  mankind  generally,  but  to  the  Jews  only,  as 
God's  peculiar  people;  and,  besides  that,  according  to  Hebrew 
parallelism,  the  term  in  the  first  question  is  used  as  parallel  to 
"God  created"  in  the  second.  Essentially  similiar  are  all  other 
instances  in  the  Old  Testament,  in  which  God  is  called  the  Father 
(Deut.  32:6;  Is.  63:16;  64:8;  Jer.  3:4,  19;  31:9,  and  Mai.  1:6). 
In  the  second  place,  it  can  only  be  assumed  as  implied  in  three 
passages  in  the  New  Testament.  The  first  of  these  is  Luke  3:38,  in 
which  the  evangelist  closes  his  ascending  genealogy  of  Christ  by 
saying  that  Adam  "was  the  son  of  God."  He  certainly  does  not 
mean  that  he  was  the  son  of  God  by  physical  generation  as  Scth  was 
of  Adam,  or  as  any  other  one  of  the  descending  line  was  of  his 
father,  nor  in  any  other  way  than  that  he  was  created  by  God  in  His 
own  image  and  after  His  own  likeness,  and  He  was  therefore  God's 
son  only  in  the  figurative  sense  that  he  was  His  creature,  as  all  his 
descendants  are  equally  His  creatures.  The  second  of  these  is  in 
our  Lord's  Parable  of  the  Lost  Son  (Luke  15:11-32),  in  which  the 
relation  of  God  to  two  classes  of  mankind,  those  who,  having  for- 
saken Him  and  sunk  into  grossest  immoralities  and  vices,  are 
brought  to  return  to  Him  truly  repentant,  and  those  who,  like  the 
self-righteous  Pharisees,  claim  to  have  been  always  righteous  and  to 
need  no  repentance,  is  represented  by  that  of  a  human  father  to  two 
sons,  such  as  are  described.  From  this  representation,  it  is  inferred 
by  some  that  He  implies  that  God  is  the  Father  of  all  men  in  the . 
literal  sense  in  which  a  human  father  is  of  his  children,  overlooking 
the  fact  that  God  is  simply  man's  Creator  literally  (Gen.  1:26,  27), 
and  his  Father  only  figuratively  by  the  nature  of  the  case.  The 
point  of  the  analogy  is,  that  the  tenacious,  merciful  love  of  the 
human  father  pictured  towards  his  lost  son,  and  his  welcoming 
reception  of  him  when  he  returned  repentant,  illustrate,  not  the 
physical  paternity,  but  the  tenacious,  merciful  love  of  God  towards 


GOD'S  MANIFESTED  LOVE.  !I3 

human  sinners  as  His  creatures,  and  His  welcoming  reception  of  all 
of  them  who  return  to  Him  truly  repentant;  while  the  course  of  the 
human  father  towards  the  elder  son,  whose  whole  conduct  and  spirit 
showed  him  the  contrary  of  what  he  assumed  and  claimed  to  be,  in 
taking  him  on  his  own  ground  to  show  him  his  perverseness  and  to 
bring  him  out  of  it,  illustrates  the  course  of  God  toward  those 
Pharisees  and  all  like  them,  whose  whole  conduct  towards  Himself 
and  repentant  sinners  proved  them  the  contrary  of  what  they 
assumued  and  claimed  to  be,  in  forbearingly  taking  them,  as  it 
were,  on  their  own  ground  to  show  them  their  perverseness  and  to 
bring  them  to  repentance  along  with  the  publicans  and  sinners. 
The  illustration  neither  asserts  nor  implies  the  absurdity  of  the 
natural  Fatherhood  of  God,  nor  proves  anything  in  its  favor;  but, 
as  it  was  intended  to  do,  it  wonderously  represents  His  merciful 
love  towards  mankind  despite  all  their  sins,  but  especially  to  all  of 
them  who  return  to  Him  in  true  repentance.  The  third  of  these  is 
Acts  17:28,  29,  in  which  the  Apostle  Paul  quotes  from  the  Greek 
poet  Aratus  the  words — "  For  His  offspring"  [or  race,  as  we  prefer] 
"we  are;  "  and,  assuming  that  his  hearers  agreed  with  the  quotation, 
he  went  on  to  argue  from  it,  as  if  their  own  ground,  against  their 
idolatry.  Neither  it  nor  his  use  of  it  signifies  that  God  is  the  Father 
of  mankind  in  a  natural  or  physical  sense,  or  in  any  other  than  that 
He  is  their  Creator,  which  is  the  only  natural  meaning  it  can  have. 
There  is  no  other  Scriptural  passage  on  which  this  assumption  can 
even  seemingly  rest.  Why  this  extremely  parsimonious  use  of  even 
the  analogy  there  is  between  God's  Creatorship  and  human  father- 
hood? We  believe,  to  avoid  furnishing  even  a  seeming  basis  to 
sentimentalist  preachers  and  others  for  attempting  to  get  rid  of  the 
fundamental  truth  that  God  is  a  Moral  Governor  by  arraying  against 
it  this  fancy  of  His  natural  Fatherhood  of  mankind,  with  only  a 
Father's  government  or  lack  of  one  over  them.  They  thus  attenu- 
ate and  debase  in  conception  the  consistence  of  His  love  from 
moral  to  natural,  from  designed,  voluntary,  and  social  towards  all 
to  merely  emotional,  affectional,  and  sympathetic  towards  each. 
The  climax  of  this  attenuation  and  debasement  is  capped  by  the 
folly  of  the  iiiotherhood  of  God. 
§  69.  god's  manifested  love  and  character  as  a  moral  governor 

UNAPPROACHED  BY  WHAT  THEY  WOULD  BE,  WERE  HE  MERELY  A 
FA'J-HKK. 

Obviously,  this  notion  of  the  literal  or  natural  Fatherhood  of 
God  to  mankind,  instead  of  being  a  conviction  based  on  clear,  per- 


114  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

tinent  evidence,  is  merely  a  tenet  invented  and  adopted  without 
such  evidence  for  an  end  beyond  itself,  and  in  antagonism  to  the 
invincible  fact  and  truth  that  He  is  a  Moral  Governor  over  all  His 
rational  creatures;  and  the  reason  for  the  antagonism  is  in  the  law 
He  administers.  The  holders  of  this  notion  antagonize  the  law 
both  on  account  of  the  action  it  requires  and  of  the  penal  retribu- 
tion it  threatens  for  sin.  The  action  it  requires  is  pure  moral  love 
from  each  to  God  and  every  other  one;  and  it  requires  this  as  justice 
to  God  and  every  other  one.  It  is  its  quality  of  justice  which  con- 
stitutes it  bindingly  social,  so  that  the  love  it  requires  is  ozved  by 
each  to  God  and  every  other  one,  and  is  due  from  every  other  one, 
even  God,  to  each  who  has  not  forfeited  the  right  to  it.  All  action 
contrary  to  this  love  is,  in  principle,  necessarily  in  violation  of  the 
rights  of  God  and  all  others,  and  is  thus  universal,  everlasting, 
measureless  wrong,  injustice,  and  injury  to  Him  and  all  others;  and 
this  quality  of  justice,  as  retributive,  demands  that  each  sinner  shall 
be  positively  punished  by  God  exactly  according  to  his  ill-desert,  as 
He  sees  it,  when  the  time  of  retribution  comes.  If  God  is  a  Moral 
Governor,  and  maintains  His  law  and  government.  He  must  infal- 
libly thus  punish  all  sinners,  unless  He  can  retrieve  them  by  a 
redemptive  measure,  containing  an  atonement.  If  He  does  not, 
He  necessarily  treats  the  law,  obedience,  and  sin  as  trifles;  prac- 
tically abolishes  the  universal  moral  system  with  all  its  order  and 
well-being,  and  brands  the  very  constitution  of  moral  natures,  in 
which  that  system  is  founded,  as  only  to  be  disregarded  and  tram- 
pled upon;  makes  nothing  of  all  the  violations  of  the  rights  and 
dues,  natural  and  moral,  and  the  interests  and  concerns  of  Himself 
and  others  done  by  sinners;  and,  by  thus  virtually  sanctioning  all 
the  wrong,  injustice,  and  injury  of  all  these  violations  by  every  one 
since  Adam  fell,  evinces  Himself  infinitely  more  unjust  and  injur- 
ious than  all  of  them  together,  and  shows  that  He  is  neither  a  right- 
eous nor  a  good  being.  Hence,  the  absolute  necessity  for  the 
mission  and  atoning  death  of  Christ  in  order  to  the  salvation  of  any; 
and  the  fact  of  the  manifested  love  of  God,  of  the  Father  in  giving 
His  only-begotten  Son  to  meet  this  necessity,  of  the  Son  in  coming 
and  doing  it,  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  performing  all  His  part  in 
accomplishing  this  unparalleled  measure  of  Godhead.  The  love  of 
God  thus  manifested  for  human  sinners  immeasurably  surpasses, 
not  only  all  His  other  manifestations  of  it  which  have  ever  been 
made,  but  any  that  He  could  possibly  make  of  it,  if  His  relations  to 
them  were  those  of  a  merely  literal  Father,  and  not  of  a  Moral 


GOD'S  MANIFESTED  LOVE. 


ti5 


Governor.  There  is  nothing  moral  in  such  Fatherhood,  nor  in 
mere  natural  affection  for  offspring,  since,  whether  paternal  or 
maternal,  it  is  simply  instinctive  or  natural  in  human  as  well  as  in 
all  inferior  animal  parents,  just  as  filial  affection  to  parents  also  is; 
and  there  is  nothing  done  from  it,  however  beautiful  or  lovely  to 
see,  by  creaturely  parents  of  any  species,  nor  could  there  be  by  God, 
which  approaches  comparison  with  the,  excellence  and  glorious 
beauty  of  truly  moral  action  and  manifestation.  For  God  to  create 
mankind  and  other  moral  beings  must  necessarily  be,  not  only  moral 
action,  but  of  its  highest  kind;  for  it  was  to  make  living  miniature 
images  and  likenesses  of  Himself,  having  the  same  kind  of  spiritual, 
intellectual,  moral,  sensitive,  and  voluntary  nature  as  His  own; 
endowed  with  moral  reason,  which,  by  containing  and  affirming  the 
law,  renders  each  of  them  a  moral  being,  and  under  a  natural  neces- 
sity of  acting  morally  and  responsibly  in  all  his  relations  to  other 
such  beings  and  to  Himself;  it  was  to  constitute  a  universal  moral 
system  embracing  with  Himself,  by  a  necessity  of  their  nature, 
all  His  intelligent  creatures;  it  was  to  assume  towards  them  absolute 
obligations  to  govern  them  all  according  to  the  law  in  their  reason 
and  the  universal  moral  system  constituted  by  it,  and  not  according 
to  any  mere  sentimental,  %\vcii^\y  personal,  sympathies;  and  it  was  to 
do  and  to  assume  to  do  all  this,  knowing  perfectly  that  sin  would 
invade  the  universal  and  eternal  moral  society  with  all  its  train  of 
curses,  all  the  inconceivable  havoc  it  would  work  among  mankind 
and  others  of  it,  and  the  stupendous  cost  it  would  bring  on  Himself 
to  retrieve  even  a  part  of  them  from  its  destructive  power.  To  ereate 
such  beings  was  therefore  incomparably  the  greatest  and  grandest  of 
the  works  of  God,  the  one  of  matchlessly  highest  design,  highest  end, 
highest  nature,  highest  wisdom,  highest  creative  power,  the  one  for 
which  all  the  others  were  done,  the  sole  one  of  moral  kind  among 
them,  and,  of  such  kind,  the  fundamental  and  the  consummate  one 
of  all  others  ever  done  or  to  be  done  by  Him  even  in  executing  the 
redemptive  measure  through  all  its  parts  and  stages.  It  is  as  certain, 
then,  as  that  He  created  all  moral  beings,  and  as  that,  by  their  moral 
nature  with  its  law,  they  are  in  a  universal  moral  system,  that  He  is, 
in  the  strictly  normal  sense  of  the  words.  Moral  Governor  over  them 
all.  By  creating  them  what  and  related  as  they  are.  He  necessarily 
created  an  infinite  obligation  and  responsibility  upon  Himself  to 
each  and  all  of  them,  while  without  sin, not  only  to  govern  them,  but  to 
do  so  exactly  as  pure  moral  reason,  the  law,  and  the  universal  moral 
system  demand.   It  would  be  infinite  injustice  in  Him,  if  He  did  not. 


ii6  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEAt. 

§  70.  THAT  GOD  IS  FATHER  OF  MANKIND  LITERALLY  IS  ABSURD,  AND 
THAT  HIS  GOVERNMENT  IS  ONLY  PATERNAL  IS  DEGRADING  TO  IT 
AND    HIM. 

The  relation  of  God  to  mankind  as  the  Originator  of  their 
being  with  all  its  essential  qualities  is  the  same  to  all  other  moral 
beings;  and  not  Father,  but  Creator  is  the  only  term  which  does  or 
can  express  it.  The  term  Father,  in  its  literal  sense  of  begetter  or 
generator,  is  not  synomymous  with  Creator;  and  it  is  purely  absurd 
to  apply  it  to  Him  in  that  sense,  or  otherwise  than  figuratively  in 
reference  to  His  relation  to  mankind  as  their  Creator.  He  can 
figuratively  be  called  their  Father,  to  indicate  His  affectionate 
interest  in  them,  in  entire  consistency  with  the  real  fact  that  He  is 
their  Moral  Ruler  and  must  govern  and  treat  them  every  one  pre- 
cisely as  the  universal  law  and  moral  system  demand.  But  when 
He  is  called  their  Father  in  opposition  to  and  rejection  of  this 
whole  real  fact,  the  term  is  necessarily  used  literally,  and  therefore 
absurdly.  Literally  He  is  not  the  Father  of  mankind;  but  He  is 
incomparably  more,  their  Creator,  who  has  in  Him  all  the  amazing 
affection  for  them  demonstrated  by  what  He  has  done  and  sacrificed 
in  His  whole  redemptive  measure,  especially  in  the  incarnation  and 
atonement  of  His  Son,  in  connection  with  His  eternal  law  and  gov- 
ernment over  them,  and  the  universal  and  everlasting  moral  system. 
But  the  asserters  of  this  literal  Fatherhood  are  such  in  opposition  to 
this  moral  system,  to  the  law  with  its  justice,  and  to  its  administra- 
tion. They  want  a  God  too  good  to  have  and  execute  such  a  law, 
and  to  maintain  such  a  system  of  as  perfect  universal  justice  fulfilled 
by  holy  love  as  possible! — one  who  will  treat  His  own  law,  not  as 
such,  authoritative  and  absolutely  binding  on  all  with  proportional 
sanctions,  but  merely  as  an  unauthoritative  ideal  rule  of  action,  per- 
fect, but  not  to  be  enforced  as  practical! — a  Father,  therefore,  with 
will  free  from  it  to  follow  His  mere  feelings  of  affection  for  His  sin- 
ning children,  and  to  deal  with  each  of  them  regardless  of  others, 
and  of  all  their  and  His  own  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns 
outraged  by  him,  and  of  the  universal,  everlasting,  moral  system, 
founded  in  all  moral  natures,  but  fundamentally  in  His  own!  It 
ought  to  decide  against  this  notion,  to  look  at  what  must  be  true,  if 
it  is,  in  contrast  with  what  must  be  true,  if  God  is  a  Moral  Governor 
over  all  His  rational  creatures,  i.  If  it  be  true,  and  God  is  not  a 
Moral  Governor  who,  at  the  time  of  final  reckoning,  will  deal  with 
every  sinner  as  all  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  all 
others  and  Himself,  which  have  been  violated  by  him,  and  as  the 


GOD'S  FATHERHOOD.  I17 

law  in  all  moral  natures  and  the  universal  and  eternal  moral  system 
demand  for  perfect  maintenance,  then  the  following,  among  many 
other  things,  must  be  true: — He  is  in  antagonism  to  His  own  and  all 
the  moral  natures  He  has  made;  to  the  law  in  and  from  them,  and 
declared  by  Him;  and  to  all  the  intuitions  and  affirmations  of  moral 
reason  and  conscience  connected  with  the  law  and  with  obedience 
to  it  and  sin,  specially  as  to  natural  and  moral  rights  and  dues, 
obligations  and  debts,  good-desert  and  ill-desert,  accountability  and 
retributions  of  both  reward  and  punishment: — He  makes  no  account 
of  either  obedience  or  sin,  except  as  it  concerns  its  actor,  and  him 
only  as  the  one  benefits  or  the  other  injures  him,  and  is  regardless 
of  all  the  evils,  injuries,  and  miseries  caused,  and  the  sins,  vices, 
crimes,  and  enormities  committed  by  sinners: — And,  if  judged  by 
the  standard  of  the  law.  He  cannot  be  just,  righteous,  benevolent, 
nor  good,  but  must  be  the  opposite,  His  whole  character  as  a  right- 
eous and  good  Being  being  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  this  invented, 
non-moral,  sentimental,  literal  notion  of  the  paternity  of  God  to  all 
mankind — "A  gulf  profound  as  that  Serbonian  bog,  *  *  *  where 
armies  whole  have  sunk."  2.  But,  if  God  is  a  Moral  Governor,  and 
will,  in  the  final  reckoning,  deal  with  every  sinner,  not  saved  by 
grace,  precisely  as  His  own  and  all  created  moral  natures,  as  the 
universal,  unchangeable  law  and  moral  system,  as  all  the  intuitions 
and  affirmations  indicated,  and  as  eternal  justice  in  the  law  and 
moral  system,  as  all  these  with  all  they  involve  demand,  then  He  is 
absolutely  just  and  good,  the  exactly  righteous  Moral  Governor 
over  His  whole  intelligent  universe.  Such  are  these  two  alterna- 
tives; and  they  demonstrate  the  absolute  necessity  for  the  atone- 
ment of  Christ  in  order  to  the  salvation  of  any  human  sinner. 

§71.    THE    SCRIPTURAL    DOCTRINE    OF    GOD'S    FATHERHOOD,    AND  OF  HIS 

REAL    CHILDREN. 

It  is  only  of  the  regenerated  of  mankind,  or  the  truly  religious, 
that  God  is  declared  in  Scripture  to  be,  and  to  offer  to  be,  the 
Father;  and  of  course  he  is  the  Father  of  such,  not  as  their  Creator; 
nor  in  any  natural  sense,  but  in  a  spiritual  and  moral  or  religious 
sense.  Such  only  can  from  the  heart  truly  say — "  Our  Father,  who 
art  in  heaven"  (Mat.  6:9).  "But  as  many  as  received  Him,  to 
them  gave  He  the  right  to  become  the  children  of  God,  even  to 
them  that  believe  on  His  name:  which  were  born  not  of  blood, 
aor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God" 
^John  1:12,   13).     "Wherefore,   come  ye    out   from    among   them, 


Ii8  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

and  be  ye  separate,  saith  the  Lord,  and  touch  no  unclean  thing; 
and  I  will  receive  you,  and  will  be  to  you  a  Father,  and  ye 
shall  be  my  sons  and  daughters,  saith  the  Lord  Almighty  "  (IL  Cor. 
6:17,  18).  "For  ye  are  all  sons  of  God,  through  faith,  in  Christ 
Jesus"  (Gal.  3:26).  "For  as  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
these  are  sons  of  God"  (Rom.  8:14.  See  also  verses  15,  16).  So 
runs  the  whole  current  of  Scriptural  teaching  as  to  those  to  whom 
God  is  a  Father,  and  those  who  are  His  children.  As  to  others  in 
contrast,  see  Mat.  13:38;   John  8:37-44;   and  L  John  3:8-10. 

§  72.    MEANING  OF  THE  WORD  GOD,  AND  WHAT   THE   SCRIPTURES  TEACH 
RESPECTING  HIM  AS  MORAL  GOVERNOR. 

What  now  do  the  Scriptures  teach  as  to  whether  God  is  a  moral 
Governor  over  mankind,  and  all  intelligent  creatures?  Not  only 
do  they  positively  teach  that  He  is  one,  but  they  do  so  in  every 
variety  of  way  and  most  aboundingly.  It  is  important  to  notice 
that  the  very  word  God  includes  governing  in  its  meaning.  In 
Webster's  Dictionary,  under  this  word,  after  referring  to  it  in  some 
half  a  score  of  branches  or  varieties  of  the  Teutonic  language,  the 
writer  says — "As  this  word  and  good  are  written  exactly  alike  in 
Anglo-Saxon,  it  has  been  inferred  that  God  was  named  from  His 
goodness.  But  the  corresponding  words  in  most  01  the  other  lan- 
guages are  not  the  same,  and  it  is  believed  no  instance  can  be  found 
of  a  name  given  to  the  Supreme  Being  from  the  attribute  oi  goodness. 
It  is  probably  an  idea  too  remote  from  the  rude  conceptions  of  men 
in  early  ages.  With  the  exception  of  the  word  Jehovah,  the  name 
of  the  Supreme  Being  appears  usually  to  have  reference  to  His 
supremacy  or  power,  and  to  be  equivalent  to  lord  or  ruler.  In  the 
present  case,  there  is  some  evidence  that  this  is  the  sense  of  this 
word;  for,  in  Persian,  goda,  or  khoda,  signifies  lord,  master,  prince, 
or  ruler."  Under  No.  2  of  its  specific  meanings,  he  gives — "The 
Supreme  Being;  the  eternal  and  infinite  Spirit,  the  Creator  and  the 
Sovereign  of  the  universe;  Jehovah."  So,  in  Hebrew,  Elohim, 
which  is  the  name  of  God  as  Creator,  Upholder  and  Controller  of 
all  things  and  beings,  signifies  strength,  almightiness,  the  Author, 
Controller,  and  Ruler  of  all  things  and  creatures;  while  Jehovah 
designates  Him  as  the  specially  revealed,  eternally  existing  God  of 
redemptive  providence,  grace,  and  salvation.  The  word  God,  there- 
fore, is  a  correct  translation  of  the  word  Elohim,  both  having  the 
main  functional  meaning  in  relation  to  moral  beings  of  controlling, 
ruling,  governing    them  as  such.     Absolute    moral    rulership  is  in 


MEANING  OF  THE   WORD  GOD.  119 

every  generic  idea  of  God,  and  is  so  prominent  in  a  large  number 
of  Scripture  passages,  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  receive  from  them 
a  profound  sense  of  His  sovereign  majesty  and  universal  moral 
government. 

The  Scriptures  superabundantly  teach  both  directly  and  by 
implications,  that  God  is  a  Moral  Governor,  and  sovereignly  requires 
from  men  and  all  intelligent  creatures  perfect  obedience  to  His  law. 
as  known  or  knowable  by  them,  under  the  sanctions  ot  deserved 
retributions  of  rewards  for  it,  or  punishments  for  disobedience.  To 
prove  this,  we  need  not  quote  nor  even  refer  to  all  the  passages 
which  so  teach,  but  to  a  proportion  of  them  sufificiently  large  to 
evince  the  momentous  importance  to  mankind  of  this  sovereign 
function  of  God  towards  them,  and  of  their  knowledge  of  the  fact 
that  He  exercises  it  over  them.  We  adduce  them  in  separate  groups 
according  to  the  special  points  they  inculcuate: — i.  He  is  called 
Lord,  which  properly  means  ruler  or  governor,  hundreds  of  times; 
and  much  the  most  frequently  it  has  or  includes  this  legitimate 
sense.  It  is  applied  to  God  as  one,  and  to  the  Father  and  the  Son. 
For  proof,  see  Cruden's,  Young's,  or  any  full  Concordance.  2.  In 
I.  Tim.  6:15,  He  is  called  "the  blessed  and  only  Potentate,''  imply- 
ing that,  in  the  absolute  sense,  He  is  the  only  real  one  in  the  uni- 
verse. 3.  In  the  same  verse  is  added  "i^//;^  of  kings,  and  Lord  of 
lords."  See  same  titles  in  Rev.  19:16;  also  in  changed  order  in 
Rev.  17:14.  In  15:3,  He  is  called  "King  of  the  ages."  In  I.  Tim. 
1:17,  He  is  called  "the  King  eternal,  immortal,  invisible;"  and,  in 
all.  He  is  called  King  about  thirty-five  times.  4.  A  throne,  the 
official  seat  of  a  king,  and  so  the  symbol  of  sovereign  majesty  and 
government,  is  ascribed  to  Him  in  the  heavens,  or  as  heaven  itself, 
about  seventy  times.  5.  Majesty  is  ascribed  to  Him  some  fifteen 
times.  6.  He  is  represented  as  reigning  over  all  mankind  and  all 
moral  beings  about  fifteen  times.  7.  Also,  as  ruling  mankind  twelve 
times.  8.  Also  as  doing  His  sovereign  will  tmiversally  three  times. 
9.  Also  as  having  universal  and  everlasting  dominion  about  ten 
times.  10.  Also,  as  having  a  kingdom  over  mankind  and  all  intelli- 
gent beings  more  than  a  dozen  times,  besides  scores  of  passages 
which  speak  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  of  heaven,  in  the  Gospel 
sense.  11.  Also  as  a  laio-giver,  able  to  save  and  to  destroy.  12. 
Accordingly,  He  has  declared  His  law  (i)  in  the  moral  nature  or 
reason  of  man,  and  all  His  rational  creatures  (see  Rom.  1:18-32; 
2:6-15,  26,  27);  and  (2)  He  has  added  to  man  an  objective,  inspired 
declaration  both  of  its  essential  principle  and  of  a  vast  number  of 


120  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

its  applications  to  them  in  all  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to 
Himself — this  declaration  ot  it  being  made  indispensably  necessary 
by  their  extremely  defective  knowledge  of  it  in  both  the  respects 
mentioned,  caused  by  their  moral  depravity  and  corruption.  13. 
He  has  declared  the  sanctions  of  His  law,  of  both  reward  and  pun- 
ishment, and  that  He  will  administer  them  in  exact  accordance 
with  the  good  or  ill  desert  of  every  moral  actor  for  his  deeds  done 
during  this  life.  We  have  shown  that  universal  conscience  attests 
that  He  will  administer  positive  retributions,  distinct  from,  and  in 
addition  to,  all  the  natural  consequences  of  moral  action;  and  we 
now  proceed  to  point  out  what  the  Scriptures  teach  respecting  this 
radical  point.  We  indicate  only  part  of  their  teachings  on  this  point, 
and  request  readers  to  turn  to  and  read  the  passages  referred  to: — 
(i)  God  will  reward  or  punish  every  moral  actor,  except  sinners 
forgiven  on  the  basis  of  Christ's  atonement,  strictly  according  to 
his  deserts  for  his  works  or  deeds  done  in  this  life.  This  is  His 
absolute  rule  of  retribution  (H.  Sam.  3:39;  Job  34:11;  Ps.  62:12; 
Prov.  24:12;  Is.  3:10,  11;  Jer.  17:10;  32:19;  Ez.  7:27;  Mat.  16:27; 
Rom.  2:6-10;  II.  Cor.  5:10;  I.  Pet.  1:17;  Rev.  2:23;  20:12,  13;  22:12). 
(2)  He  will  do  this  conclusively  in  the  day  of  judgment  (Eccl.  12:14; 
Mat.  7:21-23;  13:40-43,  47-50;  16:27;  25:31-46;  Luke  13:23-30; 
John  5:27-29;  Rom.  2:5-11,  16;  14:10-12;  I.  Cor.  4:5;  II.  Cor. 
5:10;  II.  Thess.  1:6-10;  Heb.  10:26-31;  II.  Pet.  2:4-10;  3:7).  (3) 
Penal  retributions  to  which  the  wicked  will  then  be  consigned.  First, 
those  awaiting  the  wicked  angels  (Mat.  25:41,  45;  II.  Pet.  2:4; 
Jude  6).  Second,  those  awaiting  wicked  men — (tz)  They  will  not 
enter  into,  but  will  be  forever  shut  out  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
(Mat.  5:20;  7:21-23;  8:11,  12;  13:41,  42,  47-50;  25:1-12,  14-30, 
34-41;  Mark  9:47;  Luke  13:25-28;  I.  Cor.  6:9,  10;  Gal.  5:19-21; 
Eph.  5:5) — (^).  They  will  not  enter  into  the  New  Jerusalem  (Rev. 
21:27;  22:15) — C*^)-  They  will  be  cast  into  "outer  darkness"  (Mat. 
8:12;  22:13;  25:30;  II.  Pet.  2:17;  Jude  13 — (^d).  They  will  be  cast 
into  a  furnace  of  fire  (Mat.  i8:S,  9;  25:41;  Jude  7);  fire  unquench- 
able, Mark  9:43-49;  the  lake  of  fire,  Rev.  19:20;  20:10,  12-15;  21: 
8,  27;  into  i^yEtwa)  hell  (Mat.  5:29,  30;  10:28;  Luke  12:4,  5;  Mat. 
18:9;  23:33;  Mark  9:43,  45,  47) — (1?).  They  will  go  away  into  ever- 
lasting punishment  (Mat.  25:46);  are  reserved  to  be  punished  (II. 
Pet.  2:9);  will  be  punished  with  everlasting  destruction  (Mat.  7:13; 
II.  Thess.  1:9;  I.  Tim.  6:9) — (/).  They  will  suffer  the  wrath,  6/577), 
of  God,  the  punitive  retribution  His  justice,  as  retributive,  demands 
(Mat.  3:7;  Luke  3:7;  John  i:i(>;  Rom.  2:5-11;  Eph.  5:5,  6;  Col. 


MEANING  OF  THE  WORD  GOD.  121 

I'.d;  I.  Thess.  1:10;  Rev.  11:18)— (^).  God  will  render  to  them  indig- 
nation and  wrath,  tribulation  and  anguish  (Rom.  2:5-9;  i^i^j  Heb. 
10:26,  27) — {Ji).  He  will  take  vengeance  on  them  in  the  sense  of 
inflicting  exact  retributive,  repaying,  recompensing,  rewardi?ig  punish- 
ment (Deut.  32:35,  -41,  43;  Ps.  94:1;  Rom.  3:5;  6:23;  12:19;  H- 
Thess.  1:8;  Heb.  10:30;  Jude  7)— (0-  Their  resurrection  will  be  to 
shame  and  everlasting  contempt  (Dan.  12:2);  to  damnation  (John 
5:28,  29);  and  they  will  receive  the  damnation  of  hell  (Mat.  23:33; 
John  5:29) — (y).  They  will  perish  forever  (John  3:14-16;  Rom.  2:12; 
I.  Cor.  1:18;  H.  Cor.  2:15;  H.  Thess.  2:10;  H.  Pet.  2:12;  3:9). 

14.  God  has,  in  Scripture,  declared  Himself  the  universal  Judge, 
and  is  to  judge  all  mankind  at  the  end  of  the  world  in  and  by  Jesus 
Christ.  Gen.  18:25;  Deut.  32:36;  I.  Sam.  2:10;  I.  Chron.  16:33; 
Ps.  7:8,  11;  9:8;  50:4,  6;  75:7;  94:2;  96:13;  98:9;  Is.  3:13;  Rom. 
I'.d;  Heb.  10:30;  12:23;  I-  P'^t.  4:5;  Rev.  20:12,  13.  Respecting 
Jesus  Christ  as  the  final  Judge  of  the  world,  see  Mat.  7:21-23;  16:27; 
25:31-46;  John  5:22,  27;  Acts  10:42;  17:31;  Rom.  2:16;  H.  Tim. 
4:8.  This  function  of  Judge  is  ascribed  to  God  in  the  Scriptures 
scores  of  times. 

Such  are  the  Scriptural  representations,  mostly  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  in  the  teachings  of  the  Lord  Himself  and  of  His 
Apostles,  concerning  the  penal  retributions  awaiting  the  apostate 
angels  and  all  mankind  who  die  in  their  sins  when  the  final  judg- 
ment shall  be  declared.  No  exegetical  torturing  can  transmute  them 
into  the  mere  natural  consequences  of  sin,  which  are  also  affirmed 
and  portrayed  most  amply  and  vividly  throughout  the  inspired 
Book  as  infallibly  linked  to  each  kind  of  moral  action.  These  rep- 
resentations prove  that,  in  addition  to  these,  God  will  Himself 
confer  positive  rewards  on  the  obedient,  and  inflict  positive  punish- 
ment on  the  persistently  disobedient;  that  this  infliction  will,  in  each 
case,  be  exactly  proportioned  to  the  measure  of  his  guilt  or  ill-desert 
in  its  severity;  and  that,  in  all  cases,  it  will  be  endless.  No  true 
eschatology  can  conflict  with  these  revealed  certainties;  and  no 
mortal  can  know  anything  contrary  to  them.  Like  a  terrible  battery 
of  so  many  guns,  full-charged  and  ready  to  sweep  a  confronting  foe 
with  exterminating  destruction,  the  revealed  certainties  of  all  the 
passages  referred  to,  and  others  of  like  kind,  are  planted,  charged 
with  all  their  fearful  imports,  to  be  discharged  upon  all  who  live 
and  die  persistent  in  sin.  How  should  all  so  living  heed  our  Lord's 
counsel? — "Fear  not  them  which  kill  the  body,  but  are  not  able  to 
kill  the  soul:   but  rather  fear  Him  which  is  able  to  destroy  both  soul 


122  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

and  body  in  hell,"  ,  (Mat.  10:28;  Luke  12:4).     If  all  so  living 

and  dying  are  to  have  all  such  passages  verified  in  their  own  cases 
(and  they  certainly  are,  if  God's  word  is  true,)  what  thought  of  man 
or  angel  can  grasp  the  dreadfulness  of  the  doom  they  bring  upon 
themselves?  It  matters  not  to  say  of  some  of  the  most  fearful  oi 
these  representations  that  they  are  figurative;  for  God,  that  cannol 
lie,  nor  leave  His  inspired  servants  to  lie,  has  declared  them  to  men 
in  His  revelation  of  both  Testaments,  not  merely  as  what  would  be 
true  to  all  men,  if  Christ  had  not  come,  but  as  what  will  inevitably 
be  true  to  all  who  refuse  compliance  with  the  terms  of  salvation 
through  Him  and  live  and  die  in  sin,  though  He  has  come;  and 
whatever  figures  there  are  in  them  cannot  misrepresent  the  realities 
they  express.  If  the  fire  or  lake  of  fire  threatened  Y>t  figurative,  the 
suffering  caused  by  it  can  be  no  less  severe  than  if  it  is  literal.  The 
figure  must  not  misrepresent  the  fact.  But,  whether  figurative  01 
literal,  it  is  to  pervert  all  rules  of  interpretation  to  construe  them  ta 
signify  the  mere  natural  consequences  of  sin,  caused  by  automatic 
laws  in  moral  natures,  if  they  sin;  and  it  is  false  and  demoralizing 
to  proclaim  to  the  world  in  sermons  and  books,  as  has  been  done, 
that  "God  never  had  anything  against  sinners,"  and  will  nevei 
inflict  any  positive  punishment  upon  them,  so  that  all  they  have  to 
fear  is  the  injury  they  will  occasion  these  laws  to  work  in  them,  ii 
they  go  on  in  sin. 

§  73.    NO  PROBATION  AFTER  DEATH  FOR  ANY  OF  MANKIND  WHO  DIE 

IN    SIN. 

1.  There  certainly  will  be  none  for  any  of  them  after  the  end  oi 
the  world  and  the  final  judgment;  for  Christ  will  then  deliver  up 
His  Mediatorial  Kingdom  to  God,  even  the  Father,  and  be  Medi- 
ator no  longer,  all  human  destinies  having  been  forever  decided.* 

2.  The  question,  then,  is  confined  to  the  time  between  death  and 
the  final  judgment  of  all  mankind.  Some  maintain  that  there  will 
be  a  continued  or  new  probation  during  that  time  for  all,  or  some, 
who  have  died  in  sin,  because  they  will  still  possess  freedom  of  will, 
and  therefore  can  repent  just  as  men  can  in  this  life.  But  they 
overlook  the  natural  and  necessary  condition  of  freedom  here  01 
hereafter.  The  will  is  a  correlated  faculty,  just  as  eyes  and  ears  are 
correlated  organs.  Suppose  a  man  with  perfect  eyes  and  ears  im- 
mured in  a  massive-walled  dungeon,  into  which  not  a  ray  of  light 
nor  a  vibration  of  air  can  penetrate.     His  eyes  and  ears  would  be 

(•■■)  I.  Cor.  15:24-27;  Mat.  25:31-46;  Rom.  2:5-12;  and  many  others. 


NO  PROBA  TION  AFTER  DEA  TH.  123 

to  him,  as  far  as  their  functions  are  concerned,  as  if  they  were 
extinct,  although,  in  themselves,  perfect.  The  reason  is,  that  his 
and  all  eyes  are  correlated  to  light,  and  ears  to  vibratory  air;  and 
neither  of  them  can  perform  their  functions  out  of  the  element  to 
which  they  are  correlated.  In  like  way,  the  will  is  correlated  to 
motives,  and  cannot  act  in  any  way,  or  Avith  reference  to  any  end  or 
object  without  motives  to  do  so.  It  cannot  act  in  a  dream  without 
dreamed  motives,  nor  in  derangement  without  wildly  fancied  ones. 
If  there  are  none  before  minds  in  reference  to  any  special  end  or 
matter,  their  wills  can  no  more  act  respecting  it  than  stones  can. 
Hence  the  freedom  of  the  will  is  that  of  a  power,  not  to  act  without 
motives,  but  to  determine  its  own  action  either  in  accordance  with 
or  against  all  before  the  mind  to  or  against  any  object  or  matter  of 
choice,  without  any  necessity  created  by  them  to  act  either  way  rather 
than  the  other.  The  will  is  not  free  not  to  act  at  all  when  there  arc 
motives  before  the  mind  in  reference  to  any  matter,  but  only  to 
make  the  determination  stated.  Now,  plainly,  the  fact  that  it  is, 
and  forever  will  be  thus  free,  proves  nothing  Avhatever  in  favor  of  a 
probation  after  death  for  any  of  the  race.  The  decisive  question 
is,  whether  Christ  and  salvation  by  him  are  still  offered  by  the  Gos- 
pel to  all  or  any  who  die  in  their  sins.  The  answer,  as  far  as  the 
Scriptures  are  concerned,  is,  that  they  not  only  do  not  teach  or 
imply  such  a  probation,  but  they  teach  and  imply  the  contrary. 
There  is  not  a  promise  nor  a  prophecy  in  the  Old  Testament,  nor  a 
declaration  or  statement  in  the  New,  concerning  the  object  or  effect 
of  the  mission  of  Christ,  which  intimates  that  it  was  designed  to  have 
any  converting  or  saving  relation  to  any  who  die  in  their  sins — that 
any  of  the  sainted  dead  would  ever  be  commissioned  to  go  and 
preach  the  Gospel  among  them — or  that  a  single  one  of  them  ever 
would  or  could  be  converted  and  saved  hy  any  agency  whatever.  In 
addition  to  this  negative  proof,  all  that  is  positively  taught  in  these 
promises  and  prophecies,  declarations  and  statements,  shows  that 
they  relate  to  mankind  only  in  this  life,  and  proves  that  God  has 
made  no  provision  and  puts  forth  no  effort  to  convert  them  after 
death.  These  two  proofs  are  abundantly  confirm'ed  directly  and  by 
palpable  implications  in  Scripture.  Our  Lord,  in  His  Parable  of 
the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus,  shuts  out  the  possibility  of  any  such 
probation,  when  He  represents  Abraham  as  saying,  in  reply  to  the 
rich  man's  request  for  Lazarus  to  be  sent  to  him  for  the  service  he 
states,  verse  26, — ^'-'And  besides  all  this,  between  us  and  you  there 
is  a  great  gulf  fixed:  so  that  they  which  would  pass  from  hence  to 


124  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

you  cannot;  neither  can  they  pass  over  thence  to  us,  that  wouldy 
And,  if  what  Abraham  is  represented,  in  verse  31,  as  saying  respect- 
ing this  wretched  man's  five  brethren  is  true,  is  it  likely  or  possible 
that  they  would  repent  in  Hades  with  their  brother?  Then  these 
proofs  are  confirmed  by  all  those  passages  which  denounce  Divine 
rejection  and  punishment  to  all  who  die  in  impenitence,  and  by  all 
those  which  declare  that  future  retributions  of  both  rewards  and 
punishments,  will  be  for  "the  deeds  done  in  the  body,"  or  accord- 
ing to  works  done  or  character  formed  before  death,  and  therefore 
not  natural  consequences  of  sin,  but  positive  inflictions;  while  no 
passage  hints  that  there  will  be  any  for  anything  done  by  anyone  in 
the  intermediate  state,  as  these  must  be  if  there  is  a  probation  there. 
Then,  if  there  is  such  a  probation,  it  is  wondrously  strange  that 
Christ  never  even  hinted  it,  but  absolutely  concealed  it  in  His 
teachings,  while  in  the  parable  quoted,  it  is  shown  to  be  impossible. 
There  is  the  same  reticence  respecting  it  in  all  the  teachings  of 
Apostles  and  others  in  the  New  Testament,  two  passages  only  being 
supposed  by  any  to  even  imply  it  (Mat.  12:32;  I.  Pet.  3:19).  But 
whatever  they  teach,  they  certainly  do  not  teach  in  opposition 
to  the  whole  current  of  Scriptures  besides,  that  there  is  such  a 
probation  (John  9:4).  We  cannot,  however,  attempt  a  thorough 
examination  of  them  here.  We  think,  with  the  passages  named 
(Heb.  9:27,  28)  settles  it,  and  they  all,  with  the  entire  matter 
and  teaching  of  the  Gospel,  exclude  it  from  the  family  of  Christian 
truths. 

3.  If  the  natural  consequences  of  moral  action  are  its  only 
retributions,  these,  in  the  absence  of  the  Gospel  and  all  its  motives 
and  influences,  must  be  the  only  motives  to  repentance.  But  man- 
kind are,  in  this  life,  entirely  unconscious  of  many  of  these  conse- 
quences, and  have  very  defective  recognitions  and  realizations  of 
any  of  them.  Especially  is  this  true  of  all  in  sin  and  unbelief;  so 
that,  to  them,  the  motives  of  these  consequences  are  imbecile 
against  sin  or  to  repentance.  They  have  proved  so  to  them  all  dur- 
ing this  life,  even  to  those  of  them  under  the  Gospel,  many  of  these 
thoroughly  instructed  in  it.  Can  we  suppose  these  motives  will 
prove  effectual  to  any  after  death?  Must  they  not  rather  lose  all 
tendency  to  move  any  to  repent?  This  must  certainly  be  the  case, 
if  there  will  then  be  no  Gospel,  and  so  no  ground  of  faith  in  God, 
no  warranted  hope  of  acceptance  by  Him,  no  agency  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  renew  and  help  them,  and  no  Church  with  its  preaching 
and  influences.     What  probation,  then,  can  they  have? 


NO  PROBATION  AFTER  DEATH.  125 

4.  In  addition,  the  law  of  habit,  constantly  increasing  its  binding 
power  in  them,  if  it  has  not  already  before  death,  must  immediately 
or  very  soon  after  it,  in  connection  with  their  changed  conditions, 
confirm  them  all  in  everlasting  sin.  In  this  life,  even  when  spent 
amidst  the  effulgence  of  the  Gospel,  multitudes  become  confirmed 
by  it  beyond  change;  and  its  rapid  progress  towards  the  same  result 
is  manifest  in  all  who  persist  in  sin.  Death  can  put  no  arrest  on 
this  law;  and,  even  if  there  were  a  Gospel  and  a  probation  after  it, 
this  law  must  very  soon  make  them  of  no  avail  for  any.  If  there  is 
no  Gospel  after  it,  the  case  is  what  we  have  shown  in  the  previous 
paragraph.  According  as  this  law  takes  effect,  the  will  becomes 
morally  enslaved;  and,  when  its  effect  is  complete,  all  moral  free- 
dom is  gone  forever;  all  power  of  moral  self-arbitration,  no  matter 
what  motives  and  influences  act  on  the  mind,  is  forever  lost  to  the 
will,  as  myriads  of  cases  in  this  life  prove.  It  is,  therefore,  entirely 
futile  to  argue  for  a  future  probation  from  the  natural  freedom  of  the 
will,  as  if  this  were  not  often  neutralized  by  habit  even  in  this  life. 

5.  But,  if  probation  continues  from  death  to  the  end  of  the 
world  and  the  general  judgment,  for  the  heathen  or  any  others  who 
die  without  a  knowledge  of  Christ,  how  unequal,  and,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  those  who  teach  that  it  does,  unfair  it  would  be  to  the  suc- 
cessive generations  of  them  !  There  would  be  none  for  those  found 
alive  when  the  end  comes,  nor  for  any  who  die  just  before  it  comes. 
It  would  be  shorter  to  each  generation  after  the  first  till  it  dwindled 
to  nothing  for  the  last!  If,  because  God  is  love.  He  must  continue 
probation  to  these  after  death,  ought  He  not  to  give  an  equally 
lengthy  one  to  all?  If  He  does  not,  does  He  love  all  alike?  But 
how  could  He  do  this,  unless  He  should  postpone  the  judgment  of 
the  race  and  extend  the  probation  of  everyone  till  he  either  repents 
or  is  confirmed  by  the  law  of  habit  never  to  do  so?  As  the  right- 
eous of  all  the  generations  will  not  enter  on  their  perfected  state  of 
glory  and  blessedness  till  after  the  general  resurrection  and  judg- 
ment, is  it  fair  or  right  to  keep  all  their  "numbers  without  number" 
out  of  this  state  aiad  disembodied,  till  the  last  persisting  sinner  of 
them  repents  that  God  knows  ever  will,  should  it  not  be  till  after 
thousands  or  even  millions  of  years?  It  must  be  a  trial  even  to  the 
saints  to  be  kept  waiting  so  long  for  the  obstinate  laggards!  But  how 
stands  the  case,  if  the  natural  consequences  of  moral  action  are  the 
only  retributions?  Then  a  final  judgment  of  the  race  is  excluded 
as  without  either  place  or  purpose;  and  we  see  not  why  both  an  end 
of  the  world  and  of  our  race  are  not  also  excluded  as  purposeless 


126  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

But,  according  to  the  uniform  teaching  of  Scripture,  mankind  are 
all  subject  to  a  positive  moral  system  and  government,  embracing 
an  end  of  the  world  and  of  the  race,  a  final  general  judgment,  posi- 
tive retributions  of  reward  and  punishment  "according  to  the  deeds 
done  in  the  body,"  or  during  this  earthly  life;  and  this  proves  that 
probation  ends  with  it. 

6.  But,  in  fact,  a  probation  after  death,  unless  for  a  limited  time 
made  known,  would  nullify  itself.  A  probation  for  sinners  is  purely 
gracious,  and  not  a  matter  oi  justice  in  any  sense.  It  is  a  time  of 
//-/a/ granted  them,  during  which  they  may  return  to  obedience  and 
obtain  forgiveness  and  all  promised  good,  if  they  will.  Its  known 
limitation,  with  the  certainty  that,  if  they  do  not  return  within  that 
time,  no  additional  one  will  be  granted  and  they  must  suffer  the 
punishment  and  whole  treatment  from  God  which  they  deserve, 
constitutes  the  radical  and  chief  motive  to  induce  them  to  return. 
Without  such  a  known  limitation  and  condition,  in  what  sense  could 
there  be  a  probation?  Considering  the  character  and  whole  dis- 
position and  habit  of  sinners,  the  grant  to  them  of  unlimited  time 
for  repentance  Avould  be  in  reality  a  license  and  dominant  motive  to 
persist  in  sin.  It  would  infallibly  create  in  them  the  assurance  that 
they  may  sin  on  forever,  exempt  from  any  positive  punishment;  and, 
even  if  they  should  still  be  under  the  Gospel,  it  would  lead  them  to 
reject  its  offers,  motives,  and  influences  forever.  If  they  should  not 
be  under  it,  and  the  natural  consequences  of  moral  action  are  to  be 
its  only  retributions,  and  therefore  the  only  motives  to  repentance, 
we  have  already  shown  how  absolutely  ineffectual  these  must  prove. 
A.  grant  of  unlimited  time  would  forever  exclude  an  administration  of 
positive  retributions,  and,  of  course,  all  motives  from  the  prospect  of 
them;  so  that  those  of  the  conscious  and  recognized  natural  conse- 
quences of  moral  action  would  be  the  only  ones  to  operate  upon 
them.  Not  only,  therefore,  is  there  no  reason  to  think  that  a  single 
soul  of  them  ever  would  repent,  if  granted  unlimited  time  for 
repentance,  but  every  reason  to  think  that  not  a  single  one  of  them 
(vould;  and  there  would  be  no  probation  in  their  case.  As  to  a  lim- 
ited time  of  probation  after  death,  not  only,  as  we  have  shown,  is  it 
not  taught  in  Scripture,  but  all  that  we  have  presented  shows  that  it 
ivould  be  equally  useless  and  self-nullifying. 

7.  To  sum  up  what  we  have  urged  against  this  notion  of  a  future 
probation  for  those  or  any  who  have  died  in  sin,  it  is  in  conflict  with 
the  uniform  teachings  of  Scripture,  both  direct  and  necessarily  im- 
plied; it  is  irreconcilable  with  the  known  operation  and  effects  of 


NO  PROBATION  AFTER  DEATH.  I27 

the  law  of  habit;  thei-e  can  be  no  probation  after  the  end  of  the 
world  and  the  general  judgment;  it  would  make  a  positive  moral 
system  and  government  impossible,  and  nullify  all  the  motives  of 
positive  sanctions;  it  would  abolish  justice  to  either  the  righteous 
or  the  wicked,  and  leave  all  the  wrongs  of  the  world  disregarded; 
if  the  Gospel  should  still  be  preached  to  the  souls  of  the  dead,  all 
its  motives  and  influences  •must  be  without  effect,  while  their  power 
upon  sinners  in  this  life,  who  adopt  this  notion,  must  be  nullified  or 
vastly  impaired;  it  would  nullify  itself,  destroying  the  possibility  of 
a  trial;  it  would  license  sin,  and  supply  motives  for  persistence  in  it; 
it  would  make  God  unrighteous,  if,  during  its  indefinite  or  jierpetual 
continuance,  He  should  inflict  final,  positive  punishment  on  the 
wicked  in  violation  of  his  promise  that  He  would  not,  implied  in 
granting  it,  or  in  having  no  moral  system  and  government,  and 
being,  from  sympathy  with  the  wicked,  regardless  of  the  rights, 
interests,  and  supreme  concern  of  the  righteous;  and  it  would  vastly 
impair  the  motives  to  righteousness  in  all  worlds,  in  which  it  should 
be  made  or  become  known.  We  therefore  hold  it  hostile  to  all  vital 
truth  of  law,  gospel,  moral  reason,  and  conscience,  a  mere  invention 
of  sentimentality  to  set  aside  unwelcome  truth. 

The  argument  from  the  social  nature  of  the  law,  disclosed  in  its 
matter,  end,  and  justice,  is  an  invincible  demonstration  that  there 
must  be  social  i-etribittions  —  positive  rewards  and  punishments 
retributed  by  God  Himself  as  universal  Ruler,  entirely  beyond  all 
the  merely  natural  consequences  of  moral  action;  and  that  they 
are  determined  during  probation  in  this  life.  It  would  be  mere 
arbitrary  caprice  in  Him  not  to  administer  them,  because  it  would 
be  to  disregard  and  conflict  with  the  nature  of  all  moral  beings,  His 
own  included. 


PART  II 


THF  MODE  OF  GOD'S  EXISTENCE;  THE  INCARNATION  OF 
THE  SON;  THE  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN  AND  THE  ETERNAL 
PURPOSE  OF  GOD;  HIS  FOREKNOWLEDGE,  ELECTION, 
AND  PREDESTINATION  IN  IT. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

What  men  may  know  of  God,  and  what  they  cannot,  without  a 
special  revelation  froin  Him,  and  what  by  that  of  the  Scriptures.  Why 
what  they  teach  concerning  the  ?node  of  His  existence  should  be  accepted. 
Mysteries  respecting  Him  of  no  weight  against  it;  and  predicament  of 
denier  s  of  the  Scriptures  and  their  teachings.  The  love  of  God  for  man 
ts  that  of  Him  as  three  persons. 

"  Shall  God  be  less  miraculous  than  what 

His  hand  has  foim'd?     Shall  mysteries  descend' 
From  unmysterious?     Things  more  elevate 
Be  more  familiar?     Uncreated  lie 
More  oljvious  than  created  to  the  grasp 
Of  human  thought?     The  more  of  wonderful 
Is  heard  in  Him,  the  more  we  should  assent. 
Could  we  conceive  Him,  God  He  could  not  be; 
Or  He  not  God,  or  we  could  not  be  men. 
A  God  alone  can  comprehend  a  God." 

—  young's  Ntght  Thoughts.     Night  TX. 


%  74.    ALL    THINGS    ENVELOPED    IN    INSOLUBLE    MYSTERY ESPECIALLY 

THE    BEING    AND    MODE    OF    EXISTENCE    OF    GOD. 

All  being  and  substance,  mind  or  matter,  infinite  or  finite,  are, 
as  to  essence  and  intrinsic  qualities — that  is,  as  to  what  they  are  in 
essential  nature  and  properties,  and  as  to  how  they  exist,  impene- 
trable mysteries  to  man,  and  doubtless  to  all  finite  minds.  We  know 
they  exist,  and  all  our  other  knowledge  of  them  depends  on  this; 
but  how  do  we  know  it,  since  we  perceive  only  their  phenomena 


MYSTERY. 


I2g 


and  manifestations,  not  their  essence?  When  one  perceives  these, 
whether  of  mind  or  matter,  he  knows  by  an  intuition  of  his  reason 
that  they  belong  to  an  existing  being  or  substance  which  underlies 
them;  and  this  knowledge  is  certain.  In  the  same  way  he  knows, 
with  equal  certainty,  that  there  is  a  radical  difference  between  the 
essence  and  attributes  of  mind  and  those  of  matter,  because  all  the 
phenomena  and  manifestations  of  the  one  are  invariably  totally 
different  from  those  of  the  other,  which  could  not  be,  were  they  the 
same.  But  here  his  knowledge  of  what  they  are,  per  se,  ends;  for 
what  mortal  comprehends,  or  in  any  way  knows  what  the  essence 
either  of  himself  or  of  any  other  being,  or  of  any  material  object, 
is,  or  how  it  exists  at  all,  or  in  the  mode  in  which  it  does?  Insoluble 
mystery  envelops  both  the  what  is  it?  and  the  how  is  it?  of  the 
essence  of  all  being  and  the  substance  of  all  matter;  so  that  we  live, 
move,  and  have  our  being  in  mystery,  in  the  incomprehensible.  It  is 
beneath,  above,  around,  and  in  us,  like  the  atmosphere,  or  the 
ubiquity  of  God.  It  is  in  everything  that  exists,  in  all  matter,  in  all 
mind,  and  supremely  in  God;  and,  besides  Him,  there  is  nothing 
else  so  universal,  so  omnipresent;  and  no  one  will  ever  cross  its 
frontiers  to  explore  or  to  destroy  it. 

§  75.    THE   FACT  OF    MYSTERY    OR   INCOMPREHENSIBILITY  OF  A  BEING  OR 
OBJECT  NO  REASON  FOR  DISBELIEVING  OR  DENYING  IT. 

When,  therefore,  men  are  pondering  the  teachings  of  Scripture 
concerning  God,  the  mode  of  His  existence.  His  attributes,  His 
doings  and  manifestations  in  creation,  providence,  government,  or 
redemption;  or  concerning  the  nature  and  properties  or  qualities  of 
man  or  matter;  it  is  purely  preposterous  for  any  of  them  to  say — 
"Oh,  its  all  a  mystery!  I  cannot  comprehend  it,  and  therefore  can- 
not believe  it."  What,  then,  can  he  believe?  If  he  ponders  his 
own  body,  does  he  comprehend  its  substance,  vital  principle,  diges- 
tive efficiency,  by  which  his  food  is  changed  and  assimilated  into 
bones,  cartilages,  nerves,  muscles,  hair,  nails,  skin,  and  all  parts  and 
organs,  or  how  it  continues  to  live  and  perform  all  its  functions? 
Does  he  comprehend  how  all  kinds  of  grasses,  leaves,  flowers,  fruits, 
seeds,  roots,  germs,  and  all  vegetable  growths  from  the  least  to  the 
largest  are  what  they  are?  or  what  their  vitality  and  essence  are? 
Does  he  comprehend  how  all  the  genera  and  species  of  the  animal 
kingdom,  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  reptiles,  insects,  and  animalcules  are 
what  they  are,  what  the  principle  of  their  vitality  and  organization 
is,  or  any  more  about  them  than  that  they  exist  as  they  do?     Does 


I30  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

he  comprehend  how  all  the  various  metals,  precious  stones,  original 
rocks,  peculiar  clays  and  soils  assumed  their  peculiarities,  or  what 
they,  the  air,  and  all  the  elements  of  nature  are  in  their  essential 
substance?*  When  he  can  so  comprehend  all  these,  and  all  about 
the  essence  and  faculties,  in  themselves,  of  human  minds  or  souls, 
and  how  they  are  connected  with  and  use  their  bodies  in  all  ways, 
that  no  mystery,  no  incomprehensibility  will  remain  respecting  these 
arcana,  it  will  seem  reasonable  for  him  to  object  to  receiving  and 
holding  as  true  any  doctrine  of  revelation  concerning  God  or  any- 
thing else  because  there  is  mystery  or  incomprehensibility  in  it,  but 
not  till  then!  Hence,  when  we  talk  concerning  the  nature,  the  mode 
of  being,  or  the  attributes  of  God;  the  Trinity  of  Persons  in  His 
being;  the  incarnation  of  the  second  Person,  by  which  the  Divine 
and  human  natures  became  united  into  one  Person;  or  anything 
else  beyond  our  power  of  comprehension,  the  fact  of  mystery  or 
incomprehensibility  in  it  is  no  reason  whatever,  in  itself,  why  it 
should  not  be  accepted  and  believed.  The  case  is  precisely  the 
same  as  that  of  all  the  other  things  referred  to,  which  every  one 
does  accept  and  believe.  All  things  are  grounded  in  and  pervaded 
with  insoluble  mystery.  Omtiia  exeunt  in  mysteriiun,  as  a  school- 
man says. 

§  76.    WHAT    THE    SCRIPTURES    TEACH    CONCERNING    GOD  AS  ONE    BEING 
AND   THREE    PERSONS. 

With  this  introduction  in  mind,  let  us  consider  what  the  Scrip- 
tures teach  concerning  God.  They  teach  that  He  is  one  Being,  the 
only  God — that  He  is  Spirit,  an  infinite  moral  being,  eternally  exist- 
ent, and  immutable — and  that  He  has  the  natural  attributes  of 
omnipotence,  omniscience,  and  omnipresence.  They  teach  that  He 
is  the  Creator  and  Upholder  of  all  worlds  and  creatures;  and  the 
Ruler  or  Governor  of  all  moral  natures  among  them.  They  teach 
that,  while  one  in  Being,  He  is  three  in  Persons — the  Father,  the 
Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  each  being  in  relation  to  the  others,  an  /, 
a  Thou,  and  a  He;  each  of  them  speaking  to  and  of  each  of  the 
others  just  as  each  of  three  human  persons  does;  and  each  claiming, 
and  having  ascribed  to  Him  by  each  of  the  others,  and  by  the 
inspired  Avriters,  the  same  Divine  nature,  attributes,  and  perfections 
which  are  possessed  l>y  each  of  the  others,  or  by  all  in  one.  Respect- 
ing the  Son,  they  teach  as  follows: — John  1:1-4.  "In  the  beginning 
was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God. 

(*)  See  Job,  Chapters  37-39. 


WHAT  THE  SCRIPTURES  TEACH.  131 

The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God.     All  things  were  mcide  by 
Him;   and  without  Him  was  not  anything  made  that  has  been  made. 
In  Him  was  life;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men."     Is.  9:6  pre- 
dicted His  advent,  and  the  names  by  which  He  should  be  called, 
among  which  is   "The   Mighty  God."     Matthew  (1:23)  quotes  Is. 
7:14  as  fulfilled  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  true  "Immanuel,  God  with  us." 
In  John  5:17,  18,  we  are  told  that  "Jesus  answered"  the  Jews,  who 
persecuted  Him  because  He  had  healed  a  man  on  the  Sabbath  day, 
''My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work;"  and  that    they  then 
"sought  the  more  to  kill  Him,  because  He  not  only  had  broken  the 
Sabbath,  but  said  also  that  God  was  His  Father,  making  Himself 
equal  with  God;  "  and,  in  verse  23,  He  says — "That  all  men  should 
honor  the  Son,  even  as  they  honor  the  Father.     He  that  honoreth 
not  the  Son,  honoreth  not  the  Father  which  hath  sent  Him."     In 
John  10:30,  He  says — "I  and  my  Father  are  one,"  and  the  Jews 
rightly  understood  Him  (verse  33)  as  "making  Himself  God;"  and, 
in  verses  35-38,  He  vindicates  Himself  in  so  doing.     In  John  14:9, 
He  said  to  Phillip — "  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet 
hast  thou  not  known  me,  Philip?  he  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the 
Father;  and  how  sayest  thou,  then.  Show  us  the  Father?"     In  Rev. 
1:8,  He  declared  to  John — "I  am  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega,  saith 
the  Lord  God,  which  is,  and  which  was,  and  which  is  to  come,  the 
Almighty."    In  Rom.  9:5,  Paul  says  of  Him — "  Whose  are  the  Fathers, 
and  of  whom,  as  concerning  the  flesh,  Christ  came,  who  is  over  all, 
God  blessed  forever."      In  Phil.  2:6,  he  also  says  of  Him — "Who, 
being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with 
God."     In  Col.  1:15,  he  says — "Who  is  the  image  of  the  invisible 
God"  (II.  Cor.  4:4).     In  I.  Tim.  3:16,  he  says — "  God  [or  He  who] 
was  manifest  in  the  flesh,  justified  in  the  Spirit,  seen  of  angels,"  etc. 
In  Heb.  1:3,  he  says — "Who  being  the  effulgence  of  His  glory,  and 
the  very  image  of  His  substance,"  etc.;  and,  in  verses  4-13,  he  proves 
Him    God    according   to   the   Old   Testament,  not  only  by  being 
declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  but  by  the  fact  that,  in  prophetic 
anticipation,  God  calls  on  all  the  angels  to  worship  Him,  addresses 
Him  as  God,  and  ascribes  to  Him  an  everlasting  throne  and  king- 
dom, creation   and   immutability.     The   two   last   ascriptions,   with 
those  in  verse  3  and  that  of  being  His  Son,  are  made  to  Him  as  pre- 
incarnate;   and  thus  they  all  prove  that,  as  Divine,  He  never  was  an 
impersonal  hypostasis,  but  has  eternally  been  strictly  a  Person  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  His  eternal  Father  is,  who  addresses  and  speaks 
of  Him,  and  from  whom  He  is,  as  the  plain  meaning  of  the  language 


132  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

and  the  nature  of  the  case  demand,  eternally  distinct,  as  such.  They 
therefore  absolutely  prove  that  God  is  not  one  Person  only  with 
three  manifestations  named  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit;  for  who 
can  imagine  one  manifestation  thus  speaking  to  and  concerning 
another!  In  Col.  1:19,  Paul  says — "For  it  pleased  the  Father,  that 
in  Him  should  all  the  fullness  [of  God]  dwell."  The  connection 
shows  that  this  statement  has  special  reference  to  His  Divine  nature; 
and  what  else  than  nonsense  does  the  Sabellian  notion  of  three  matt- 
ifestations,  or  that  of  three  impersonal  hypostases,  or  that  of  God's 
being  only  one  in  Person  as  in  Being  or  essence,  make  of  it?  In  I. 
John  5:20,  it  is  said — "This  [that  is  Jesus  Christ]  is  the  true  God, 
and  eternal  life."  See  John  17:5.  That  all  things  were  created,  are 
upheld,  and  consist  by  Him  is  taught  in  John  1:3,  10;  I.  Cor.  8:6; 
Col.  1:16,  17;  Heb.  1:2,  3,  10.  In  view  of  all  the  passages  quoted, 
if  understood,  as  the  common  rules  of  interpretation,  including 
those  of  grammar,  require,  we  see  no  possible  way  of  candid  process 
by  which  to  avoid  the  certain  conclusion,  that,  in  His  Divine  nature, 
our  Lord  is  God  in  precisely  the  same  sense  in  which  the  Father  is, 
that  is,  in  nature  and  person,  and  of  course  that  the  Father  is  God 
no  more  than  He;  and  that  both  the  Father  and  the  Son  are  alike 
Persons  in  the  one  eternal  and  unchangeable  Being  or  essence  of 
God.  And  what  is  thus  true  of  these  two  Persons  is  equally  so  of 
the  third,  the  Holy  Spirit;  so  that  the  revealed  mode  of  the  exist- 
ence of  the  one  eternal,  immutable  essence  or  being  of  God  is  that 
there  is  a  Trinity  of  eternal  and  equal  Persons  in  it.  Whoever 
objects  to  this  talks  mere  assumption,  without  and  against  Scrip- 
tural, and  therefore  any,  sound  reason  respecting  it. 

§   77.     NO    ANTECEDENT    PROBABILITY    OR    PRESUMPTION    AGAINST    THE 
SCRIPTURAL    TEACHING. 

We  have  shown  that  all  substance,  essence,  being  is  entirely 
incomprehensible  to  man,  both  as  to  what  it  is  in  itsetf  and  as  to  ho7e/ 
it  exists  in  any  mode;  and  that  this  is  specially  true  of  that  of  God, 
the  self-existent,  infinite,  immutable,  and  absolute  One.  As  to  our  own 
essence  or  being,  each  of  us  knows  by  self-consciousness,  not  what 
it  is  in  itself,  but  simply  that  it  exists;  that  it  does  so  in  the  mode 
of  a  single  person,  an  I  distinct  from  all  other  I's  or  persons;  that  it 
performs  the  functions  of  speculative  and  moral  intuition,  reason- 
ing, judging,  remembering,  conceiving,  imagining,  and  all  thinking — 
of  all  varieties  of  feeling  and  desiring — and  of  all  willing  choices  and 
volitions;  and  thus  that  it  possesses  intelligence,  sensibility,  and  will. 


INCOMPETENCE  OF  MAN.  133 

Consciousness,  as  a  power  of  mind,  is  that  of  knowing,  and,  as  an 
exercise  of  it,  is  actually  knowing,  ourselves  as  the  active  or  passive 
subjects  of  our  mental  exercises  and  experiences.  As  we  have  no 
knowledge  from  it  what  our  essence  is,  so  neither  has  any  one  how 
he  is  a  moral  being  or  person,  having  the  faculties  he  has  and  exer- 
ciring  them  as  he  does.  Its  deliverances  teach  the  oneness  of  his 
person,  but  not  of  his  being;  for  we  know  otherwise  that  his  being 
is  not  one  essence  or  substance,  but  at  least  two,  a  combination  of 
mind  or  spirit  and  matter,  having  not  one  characterizing  phenom- 
enon in  common.  In  view  of  the  entirely  different  phenomena  of 
the  two,  our  reason  intuitively  affirms  the  necessarily  corresponding 
difference  of  the  two  themselves.  Now,  if  these  two  totally  different 
essences  or  substances  can  be  thus  combined,  we  neither  do  nor  can 
know  how,  into  one  being,  what  mortal  can  think  why  any  number 
o{ persons  may  not  exist  in  the  one  infinite,  spiritual  essence  of  God, 
as  well  as  one? — or  how,  as  His  essence  and  mode  of  existence  are 
both  absolutely  incomprehensible  to  man,  there  is  or  can  be  even  a 
possibility  of  absurdity,  contradiction,  conflict  with  reason,  or 
improbability  in  the  revealed  doctrine  of  a  Trinity  of  Persons  in  the 
infinite  essence  of  God? — of  an  /,  a  Thou  and  a  He  in  His  mode  of 
existence?  It  is  just  as  utterly  impossible  to  comprehend  how  one 
Person  exists  in  His  essence  or  being,  as  how  three  do,  since  both 
are  fathomless  mysteries  to  man.  If  one  should  say  that  God  is 
three  beings  or  essences  in  one,  using  the  terms  in  the  same  sense,  his 
saying  would  plainly  be  not  only  self-contradictory,  but  nonsensical. 
But  no  such  thing  is  asserted  when  one  says  there  are  three  Persons 
in  His  one  being  or  essence;  for  there  is  a  palpable  distinction 
between  the  term  person,  and  the  term  being  when  used  in  the  sense 
of  essence  or  substance;  and  therefore  the  proposition  involves  no 
absurdity,  no  contradiction,  nothing  incredible  or  even  improbable, 
but  is  perfectly  consistent  and  rational,  being,  for  aught  anyone  can 
possibly  know  respecting  the  matter,  the  true  expression  of  the 
actual  mode  of  the  Divine  existence. 

§  78.    INCOMPETENCE  OF   MAN    WITHOUT  A  REVEJ^ATION   TO  KNOW   THIS, 
DEMONSTRATED  BY  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  HEATHEN  WORLD. 

Whoever  accepts  the  Scriptures  as  God's  inspired  revelation  to 
man  must  accept  this  proposition;  for  they  most  positively,  var- 
iously, and  aboundingly  assert  what  it  expresses.  He  certainly 
knows  what  the  mode  of  His  own  existence  is;  and  men  as  certainly 
neither  do  nor  can  know  anything  whatever  either  for  or  against  it, 


134  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

aside  from  what  this  revelation  teaches.  The  history  of  the  whole 
heathen  world  from  its  beginning  demonstrates  the  utter  incom- 
petence of  man,  without  an  authentic  revelation  from  God,  despite 
all  his  boasted  reason,  to  know  anything  about  this  matter.  Blind 
to  the  fact,  that  there  neither  is  nor  can  be  more  than  one  God, 
they  have,  with  extremely  rare  exceptions,  everywhere  believed  that 
there  are  many,  or,  as  in  India  and  elsewhere,  have  adopted  the 
foolish  dream  of  Pantheism,  or,  comparatively  very  few,  even  Athe- 
ism. They  have  thus  radically  erred  as  to  His  being,  His  unity, 
and  His  personality,  as  they  always  equally  have  as  to  His  char- 
acter, government,  and  relations  to  and  disposition  towards  man- 
kind. If  throughout  this  widest  and  most  lasting  experiment  ever 
made  in  this  world  concerning  any  matter,  human  reason,  untaught 
by  a  revelation  from  God  respecting  Himself,  and  having  the  whole 
field  to  itself,  has  proved  so  utterly  imbecile,  as  these  results  dem- 
onstrate, in  relation  to  what  is  and  what  is  not  true  of  God's  being, 
mode  of  existence,  character,  government,  and  whole  attitude 
towards  mankind,  what  fatuity  it  is  now  for  men  to  reject  the  reve- 
lation He  has  given  them  on  all  these  points,  and  to  rely  again 
entirely  upon  that  same  blind  imbecile  as  to  these  things,  to  give  us 
better  light  and  guidance  respecting  them,  or  any  at  all! — and  that, 
too,  when  all  they  know  or  think  about  Him  more  or  better  than 
the  heathen  have  ever  been  able  to,  they  have  demonstrably  learned 
directly  and  indirectly  from  that  professed  revelation!  This  fatuous 
retrogression  and  reliance,  eked  out  by  the  felonious  claim,  that  all 
which  they  have  received  from  that  revelation  since  their  child- 
hood has  come  from  this  demonstrated  imbecile  alone,  is  the  whole 
stock  in  trade  of  our  modern  infidels;  and  all  who  discard  that 
revelation  respecting  God  and  other  vital  matters  in  claimed  obedi- 
ence to  their  reason  are,  whether  consciously  or  not,  in  reality  part- 
ners in  that  felonious  claim.  If  God  should,  by  a  righteous  writ  of 
replevin,  recover  from  them  all  they  thus  falsely  claim  as  their  own. 
He  would  leave  them  precisely  what  all  other  heathen  are,  having 
only  heathen  reason,  heathen  ignorance  of  all  revealed  concerning 
God,  Christ,  the  moral  system,  and  the  way  and  means  of  human 
salvation,  and  heathen  gods  and  superstitions!  These  infidels 
totally  mistake  the  functions  of  reason  concerning  all  such  mat- 
ters, and  ascribe  to  it  such  as  it  is  utterly  incompetent  to  exe- 
cute— as  much  so  as  men  are  to  visit,  explore,  and  bring  back  true 
reports  of  all  in  the  sun,  or  in  any  star,  planet,  or  moon  in  all  the 
heavens. 


FUNCTIONS  OF  REASON. 


135 


§  79.    FUNCTIONS  OF  REASON    RESPECTING    RELIGIOUS   AND  MORAL 
TRUTHS    AND    FACTS. 

What  functions  can  reason  fulfill,  especially  respecting  religious 
and  moral  truths  and  facts  ?     In  general,  it  perceives  and  affirms  all 
first  truths,  mathematical  or  ethical,  although  not  directly  the  essefice 
or  substance  of  either  matter  or  mind.     As  before  stated,  we  first 
know   their   phenomena,    not  by  reason,   but  by  observation   and 
experience.     This  knowledge  of  them  being  thus  received,  reason 
then  intuitively  affirms  the  existence  of  the  essences  or  substances 
to  which  they  pertain.     When  the  phenomena  pertaining  to  them 
differ  entirely,  as  those  of  mind  and  those  of  matter  do,  it  intuitively 
affirms    that  they  also  differ  entirely  in  intrinsic  nature  and    qual- 
ities.   We  thus  know  that  there  are  classes  of  essences  or  substances 
generically  alike,  and  others  generically  different — some  material, 
some  spiritual;  of  the  material,  some  organic  and  some  not;  some 
vital   and    some  not;  of  the  non-material  or  mental,  the   rational 
alone  moral  beings,  and  all  others  non-moral.     But  reason  never 
affirms  the  essence  or  substance  of  either  class  of  them  identical 
with  that  of  the  other,  but  the  contrary;   and  it  is  the  sole  scientific 
source  of  knowledge  respecting  them.     It  also  affirms  a  First  Force 
and  Cause,  of  which  all  others  are  simply  effects — a  primal  Essence 
or  Being,  by  which  all  others,  with  their  varieties  of  nature,  consti- 
tution, and  qualities,  are  only  creations — one  therefore  of  a  nature 
and  attributes  perfectly  adequate  to  create  all  the  varieties  of  them, 
and  to  uphold,  control,  change,  or  destroy  them  universally.     This 
knowledge,  no  mere  assumptions  or  fancies  of  false  science  about 
matter  as  uncreated  and  eternal,  with  self-sj^rung  laws  and  forces  in 
it,  existing  from  eternity  till  within  calculable  time  as  a  universe  of 
most  attenuated  fire-mist,  and  then  unaccountably  originating  from 
itself  initial  life  or  protoplasm,  from  which  all  of  both  vegetable  and 
animal  kinds  which   have   existed   since   have   been    produced   by 
the  natural   process   of  evolution,  will  ever  explode  or  supplant. 
Reason's  intuitive  affirmation  of  this  primal  and  perpetual  Cause  of 
all  that  exists,  involves  that  it  is  adequate  in  all  respects  to  cause 
and  continue  them;  and  the  necessary  logical  conclusion  is,  that  it 
must  be  a  Mind,  a  spiritual,  intelligent,  voluntary,  designing.  Moral 
Being,  ubiquitous,  almighty,  all-knowing,  all-wise,  righteous,  admin- 
istering a  moral  government  over  mankind,  and  exercising  a  univer- 
sal providence. 

But  reason  affirms  all  these  truths  respecting  God  to  men  now, 
in  the  Christian  light,  with  a  clearness  and  fullness,  with  which  it 


136  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

never  did  nor  could  at  any  time  or  place  in  the  heathen  world. 
Whatever  manifestations  of  Him  they  could  observe  or  be  informed 
of  were  only  those  made  by  Him  in  crealiofi  zx\.di  providence,  because 
they  have  always  lacked  the  whole  resplendent  information  which 
He  has  given  concerning  Himself  in  the  inspired  Scriptures  and 
their  obvious  influences  and  results  of  all  kinds  on  the  minds,  hearts, 
and  whole  condition  of  populations  as  far  as  molded  by  them;  and 
because  of  the  common  blindness  of  their  minds  from  the  corrup- 
tions and  viciousnecs  in  which  they  have  been  sunk,  and  of  all  the 
darkening  influences  they  have  in  all  ways  exerted  upon  each  other. 
But,  however  much  better  than  they,  we  who  have  received  the 
Christian  Revelation  may  know  the  things  knowable  about  God,  we, 
no  more  than  they,  can  know  those  things  about  Him  which,  as  we 
have  shown,  are,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  unknowable  by  the 
human  mind.  Hence  all,  infidel  or  professedly  Christian,  who 
endeavor  to  know  these  things  by  their  reason,  set  it  at  a  task,  for 
accomplishing  which  omniscience  alone  is  competent — a  stupendous 
blunder  which  ought  to  cease. 

§  80.    APPLICATION  OF  ALL   THIS  TO  DENLERS  OF  THE    SCRIPTURAL  DOC- 
TRINE OF  THE   TRINITY. 

The  deniers  of  this  doctrine  affirm  that  it  is  self-contradictory, 
oontrary  to  reason,  and  absurd.  We  affirm  the  contrary.  Are  they 
right,  or  are  we?  This  doctrine,  as  before  said,  is  not  that  there  are 
three  distinct  essences  or  beings  in  one,  which  would  be  what  they 
assert.  As  already  said,  there  is  a  clear  distinction  between  an 
essence  or  being  and  a  person,  the  former  not  necessarily  being  also 
an  /,  as  the  latter  is.  No  essence,  the  phenomena  of  which  are  those 
of  matter,  is  an  /or  person;  nor  is  that  of  any  irrational  creature; 
yet  every  essence  is  a  being.  It  is  only  by  the  addition  of  reason 
to  it  that  it  becomes  a  person.  It  was  by  this  addition,  breathed 
into  the  new-formed  being  of  man  by  the  Creator,  that  he  became  a 
living  soul,  a  spiritual,  self-conscious  thinking,  feeling,  willing,  moral 
nature  in  distinction  from  all  irrational,  non-moral  creatures,  the 
minds  of  which  are  only  instinctive.  It  is  totally  unimportant,  as 
to  the  present  sense  in  which  the  word  person  is  or  ought  to  be  used 
philosophically,  theologically,  or  otherwise,  to  kno.v  or  care  in  what 
primary,  secondary,  or  other  sense  the  old  Latins  used  it.  It  is  the 
only  word  used  for  centuries  in  philosophy  and  theology,  and  even 
popularly,  to  signify  a  rational  sensitive,  voluntary,  moral  nature. 
Such  a  nature  is  always  a  person,  and  no  other  is,  or  can  be;  and 


SCRIPTURAL  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY.  137 

no  personless  being  can  be  a  moral  one.  As  the  terms  thinking,  feel- 
ing, willing  sum  up  all  the  phenomena  of  a  mind  or  person,  and  they 
are  all  totally  unlike  those  of  matter,  they  prove  that  mind  or  person 
is  not  matter,  but  spirit.  Beyond  what  is  thus  stated,  we  know  noth- 
ing concerning  what  constitutes  or  pertains  to  a  person. 

If,  now,  anyone  asks  whether  we  hold  that  the  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Spirit  are  Persons  in  this  sense,  we  ask  in  turn,  why  not?  If 
he  asks  further,  whether  we  hold  that  each  of  them  thinks,  feels,  and 
wills,  and  has  His  own  distinct  consciousness  of  doing  so  by  His 
own  distinct  power,  we  answer  again,  why  not?  What  difficulty  is 
there  in  the  way  of  believing  this  more  than  in  that  of  believing  the 
same  true  of  three,  or  any  number  of  human  persons,  if  this  term  is 
not  confounded  with  the  term  beings?  If  he  still  asks  how  each  of 
them  can  have  His  own  distinct  activities  and  feelings,  and  con- 
sciousness of  them,  if  they  are  all  of  one  essence  and  are  one  Being, 
and  if  the  consciousness  of  each  is  absolutely  open  and  known  to 
both  the  others,  our  answer  is,  that  their  identity  of  essence  or  being 
in  no  way  implies  identity  of  action,  feeling  and  consciousness  more 
than  of  Persons;  and  that  neither  of  them  knows  any  activity  or 
feeling  of  either  of  the  other  two  as  His  oivn,  but  only  as  His  whose 
it  is,  nor  consequently  has  His  consciousness.  How  then,  does  the 
fact  that  the  consciousness  of  each  is  absolutely  open  and  known  to 
each  of  the  others  in  the  least  conflict  with  the  fact  that  it  is  as  dis- 
tinctly His  own  as  if  He  were  the  only  one?  Does  the  fact  that 
human  persons  often  know  a  great  part  of  the  contents  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  each  other  at  all  conflict  with  the  fact  that  each  has 
his  own,  and  that  the  phenomena  it  attests  belong  purely  to  himself? 
The  oneness  of  the  Divine  Essence  or  Being  and  the  infinite  holiness 
of  the  three  Persons  in  it  secure  the  absolute  and  eternal  concurrent 
concord  of  the  wills  and  whole  character  and  state  of  the  three,  so 
that  there  is  eternal  unity  of  will  as  well  as  oneness  of  essence  or 
being  in  the  Godhead.  What  valid  objection,  then,  can  there  be  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity? — of  three  distinct  Persons  in  the  one 
Divine  Being?  Since  all  essence  or  substance  is  utterly  incompre- 
hensible in  itself,  especially  the  infinite,  spiritual,  Divine  Essence, 
and  also  the  mode  of  its  existence,  especially  of  that  of  this  infinite 
Essence,  in  what  conceivable  way  can  anyone  see  any  self-contra- 
diction, contrariety  to  reason,  or  absurdity  in  the  doctrine?  If  there 
ever  was  one  perfectly  self-consistent,  harmonious  with,  though  not 
of,  reason,  and  without  a  taint  or  touch  of  absurdity,  this  is  it;  while 
all  objections  to  and  denials  of  it  assume  grounds  which  are  false, 


138  THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  SYSTEM. 

or  self-contradictory,  or  contrary  to  reason,  and  absurd.  For  nc 
one  can  so  characterize  this  doctrine  without  confounding  persor 
with  essence  or  being  and  assuming  that  he  knows  and  comprehends 
by  his  reason  both  the  essence  of  God's  being  and  the  mode  of  His 
existence,  which,  as  we  have  shown,  is  necessarily  a  baseless  assump- 
tion. Yet  this  assumption  is  the  major  premise  of  ev^ery  assertion 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  absurd.  The  asserter's  syllogism 
is  this: — "Reason  teaches  and  I  comprehend  what  the  essence  o\ 
God  intrinsically  is,  and  the  mode  of  His  existence.  Hence,  I  know 
that  His  essence  or  being  and  His  Person  are  one  and  the  same,  so 
that  the  one  essence  is  only  one  Person.  Therefore,  the  doctrine  oi 
three  Persons  in  it  is  self-contradictory,  contrary  to  reason,  and 
absurd."  Both  the  premises,  major  and  minor,  are  false  in  factj 
and  so,  of  course,  is  the  conclusion;  so  that  the  whole  argument  is 
fatally  absurd.  The  Trinitarian  syllogism,  on  the  contrary,  is  this — 
"The  Holy  Scriptures  are  an  authentic  revelation  from  God,  and 
clearly  teach'  that  there  are  three  Persons  in  the  one  Essence  or 
Being  of  God.  Human  reason  teaches  nothing  whatever  for  or 
against  this  Scriptural  teaching,  so  that  men  have  no  valid  ground 
on  which  to  deny  or  doubt  that  teaching,  but  have  all  the  evidence 
for  the  truth  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  Christian  system  for  receiving 
it.  Therefore,  we  believe  that  there  are  three  Persons  in  the  one 
Divine  Essence  or  Being,  equal,  of  course,  in  all  attributes  and  per- 
fections." * 

(*)  The  view  concerning  the  Trinity,  presented  in  the  last  two  lectures  of 
Joseph  Cook' in  his  volume,  entitled  Transcendentalism,  of  1878,  seems  to  us  now, 
after  more  than  eight  years,  as  it  did  liien,  a  deviation  irom  the  Scriptural  teach- 
ing on  this  fundamental  subject.  Our  estimate  of  this  eminent  and  famed  lecturer 
and  man  is  very  high,  and  only  our  higher  estimate  of  ll:is  radical  subject  could 
move  us  to  utter  the  following  in  opposition,  which  we  wrote  then,  but  which  is  no 
less  important  now.  That  volume  is  not  at  hand,  and  the  reader  must  gather  from 
our  remarks  what  it  is  in  those  Lectures  to  which  we  are  objecting.  We  believe 
our  oJ^jections  perfectly  fair,  and  they  are  no  evidence  whatever  of  a  lack  of  high 
appreciation  and  respect  for  one  who,  as  an  autlior,  aims  al  greatest  truths  in  so 
many  directions,  and  so  generally  hits  the  mark.  The  truest  marksman  shoots 
amiss  sometimes.     This  said,  we  proceed. 

What  is  a  Trinity  of  impersonal  subsistences,  but  three  impersonal  snl>s/ances, 
essences,  or  beings,  distinct  from  each  other?  We  cannot  deny  the  possibility  of 
such  existences,  l)ut,  if  existent,  they  can  h&  nothing  ln\t  Ijlanks  of  reason  and 
moral  nature,  can  sustain  no  relation  to  rational,  moral  natures,  any  others,  or 
mutually;  and  can  have  no  self-consciousness,  no  designs,  no  intelligent  activity, 
no  moral  character,  and  no  desert  of  regard  by  moral  beings.  We  see  no  reason 
for  supposing  such  subsistences  in  the  Divine  Essence.  Nothing  of  the  kind  is 
taught  in  Scripture,  and  they  are  mere  speculative  inventions.  If  reminded  that 
hey  are  spiritual,  we  respond,  yes,  and  therefore  participant  of  the  Divine  Eternal 
Reason,  and  conseqneiitly  personal,  since  all  rationals,  all  existences  having  reason, 
of  whom  mankind  have  any  knoialedge,  are  personal.  To  us,  an  impersonal 
rational,  spiritual  subsistence  is  intrinsically  absurd  and  impossible;  and,  to  say 
that  God  is  one  essence  with,  or  having  in  it,  three  impersonal  hypostases  or  sub- 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE   TRINITY.  I3g 

§  8l.    NO  RATIONAL    GROUND    FOR    REJECTING   THE    DOCTRINE   OF   THE 
TRINITY  FROM  FEAR  OF  CONTRAVENING  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

•  If  the  Scriptures  are  an  inspired  revelation  from  God,  the  very- 
fact  that  they  so  repeatedly  and  positively  assert  the  o?jetiess  of  God 
against  polytheism,  and  yet  assert  with  like  repetition  and  positive- 
ness,  that  He  exists  in  three  Persons,  makes  it  equally  certain  that 
this  is  the  mode  of  His  existence,  and  forbids  to  deny  it.  If,  in 
writing  them,  "holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  and  if  "all  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God," 
it  follows  that,  in  the  supreme  sense,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  Author 
of  all  the  teachings  of  Scripture.  He  inspired  it  in  all  benevolence 
and  wisdom  to  teach  mankind  all  facts  and  truths  necessary  for  them 
to  know  in  order  to  their  salvation,  and  of  course  to  guard  them 
against  all  essential  errors.  Only,  then,  let  it  be  remembered  how 
prone  they  have  been  always  and  everywhere  to  go  into  polytheism 
and  creature-worship;  how,  throughout  the  Scriptures,  these  are 
branded  as  foulest  and  most  ruinous  sin  against  God;  and  how  likely 
they  would  be  to  go  into  them,  and  thus  bring  ruin  on  themselves, 
if  representations  were  made  in  them  that  there  were  i70o  or  three 
Gods  who  were  to  be  equally  honored  and  worshipped,  if  there 
were  but  one;  and  also  that  the  Spirit  perfectly  understood  the 
whole  case,  and  certainly  would  not  conduct  His  readers  any  nearer 
the  borders  of  so  fatal  an  error  than  absolute  truth  and  fact  demand; 

sistences  is,  in  reality  or  effect,  to  say  that  He  is  simply,  only,  and  indr^pendently 
of  these,  nnipersonal.  For,  what  function  can  be  ascribed  to  them,  unless  that 
they  are  mere  passive  organs  through  which  the  one  Person  acts  out  all  His  func- 
tions and  parts.  To  say  that  there  is  but  one  Person  in  the  Divine  Essence  or 
Being — that  is,  one  set  of  personal  attributes,  one  will,  and  one  consciousness,  is 
to  say  that  these  three  impersonal  subsistences  are,  to  human  insight  at  least, 
eternally  insignificant  ciphers,  w'lether  existent  or  not,  and  is  to  Unilai-ianize; 
while  to  say  that  they  are  the  organs,  each  of  a  special  kind  or  class  of  the  mani- 
testations  of  the  one  Divine  Person,  He  having  in  these  different  classes  of  them 
the  relations  to  Himself  indicated  by  the  designations,  The  Father,  The  Son,  The 
Holy  Spirit,  is  to  Sabelliaiiize. 

The  mutually  interchanged  /,  Tlioii,  He,  by  these  three,  so  often  repeated  in 
Scripture,  is  the  language  of  Persons,  not  fictitious  i7or  figurative,  but  real;  and 
these  designations  are  ascribed  to  them  by  the  sacred  writers,  not  only  as  mutually 
used  by  them,  but  to  express  their  own  assured  belief  or  knowledge  respecting 
them  as  related  to  each  oilier,  and  not  to  men,  except  that,  in  comparatively  a  few 
instances,  they  thus  use  the  designation,  Father.  Then,  these  three  ascribe  to 
each  other  will,  functions,  relational  action,  affections,  emotions,  and  no  other  than 
personal  activities  and  characteristics;  and  besides,  the  titles,  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Spirit  can  mean  nothing  but  Persons;  for  who  can  concieve  of  an  impersonal 
Father,  Son,  or  Holy  Spirit  ? — or  of  each  and  all  of  these  three  impersonals  in  the 
relations  to  each  other  indicaled  by  these  designations?  In  addition,  neither 
could  the  impersonal  Father  send  His  impersonal  Son,  nor  that  Son  be  sent  by 
that  Father,  nor  the  impersonal  Spirit,  it  possibly  existent,  proceed  from  and  be 
sent  by  them  both,  because  all  this  would  be  impossible  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 


I40  GOD,   CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  FLAK. 

and,  if  all  this  is  remembered  and  considered,  what  can  be  more 
certain,  than  that  whatever  the  Scriptures  contain  about  the  Father 
as  God,  the  Son  as  God,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  as  God — that  is,  about 
a  Trinity  of  Persons  in  the  one  Divine  essence,  must  be  true  to  the 
very  letter,  and  that  there  can  be  no  shadow  of  danger  in  fully 
receiving  in  its  obvious  normal  sense  whatever  is  said  concerning 
each  of  them  and  their  mutual  relations?  The  danger  must  lie 
wholly  on  the  side  of  rejecting  these  communications.  Suppose,  for 
illustration,  a  mere  human  author,  in  whose  intelligence,  judgment, 
veracity,  and  all  integrity  we  place  complete  confidence,  shows  him- 
self especially  careful  to  assert  and  establish  the  greatness  of  the 
nature,  character,  rights,  and  claims  of  one  particular  person,  are 
we  not  bound  to  believe  that  whatever  he  asserts  or  admits  as  true 
of  another  in  the  same  respects,  he  fully  recognizes  as  really  belong- 
ing to  him,  and,  as  far  as  his  authority  goes,  to  receive  his  declara- 
tions respecting  him  in  their  fullest  significance?  If,  for  instance, 
he  is  obviously  anxious  to  assert  and  maintain  the  greatness  of  the 
nature,  excellences,  rights,  and  merits  of  Washington,  and  to  urge 
his  consequent  claims  on  the  American  people  for  their  correspond- 
as  the  one  only  Person  and  agent  in  the  Divine  Essence  is  distinct  from  each  and 
all  these  inert  subsistences.  Coleridge,  somewhere  in  his  Works,  contrasts  the 
conceptions  of  God  as  a  unit- Person  and  as  a  unit-essence  of  three  Persons — the 
former  as  that  of  mere  Deism,  admitting  no  manifestation  by  incarnation  and  atone- 
ment for  human  redemption,  nor,  of  course,  of  the  love  moving  to  it;  the  latter  as 
that  of  Scripture,  according  to  which  it  is  perfectly  possible  and  gloriously  actual. 
The  unipersonal  God  is  thnt  of  Mahometans,  not  of  Christianity;  and,  to  our  con- 
science, Naaman's  fault,  if,  as  he  proposed  to  the  prophet  his  wish  to  do,  he  went 
with  his  royal  master  going  to  worship  in  the  temple  of  Rimmon,  was  vastly  less 
than  ours  would  be,  if  we  should  kneel  with  any  Sultan  and  his  fellow  misbelievers 
in  their  mosque  in  their  worship,  and  thus  recognize  their  falsely  conceived  God 
as  identical  with  the  Christian,  and  sanction  their  apostate  rejection  of  the  revealed 
Tripersonal  God,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  the  only  God  of  love  and  i-edemp- 
tion  for  lost  man.  The  Allah  they  conceive  is  not  a  God  of  love  or  justice,  but, 
in  character,  simply  a  reflected  likeness  of  his  creator,  the  ignorant,  impure,  mor 
ally,  and  religiously  blind,  big-headed,  unprincipled,  fanatical,  prototype  Mormon, 
who,  claiming  to  be  his  prophet,  and  combining  the  consummate  impostor,  bigot 
and  general  robber,  initiated  that  appalling  ravage  of  continents,  which,  through 
subsequent  centuries,  has  wrought  such  incalculable  havoc  of  life,  liberty,  products 
ot  the  arts  and  labors  of  many  generations,  right  belief,  religion,  morality,  and 
civilization  over  such  vast  portions  of  the  globe.  The  core  of  that  pernicious  delu- 
sion is  the  mere  Deistic  assumption  of  a  unipersonal  God,  supported  by  neither 
Scripture  nor  reason,  while  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  of  Persons  in  one  Being  is 
purely  one  of  Scripture,  untaught  by  which  human  reason  knows  nothing  for  or 
against  it  as  it  is,  although  it  is  not  without  remarkable  precursory  glimmerings 
in  parts  of  the  heathen  world.  When,  where,  or  how  the  first  of  them  originated 
we  are  not  definitely  told,  but  their  origin  was  certainly  in  high  antiquity;  they 
did  not  come  by  any  teachings  of  human  reason,  but  were  probably,  as  Cudworth 
thinks,  intimated  or  gathered  from  some  revelation  from  God  concerning  the  mode 
of  His  existence,  given  through  Moses  or  some  one  or  more  of  the  chosen  people, 
presumably  including  Dnvid  (see  Gen.  1:26,  and  Psalms  2  and  1 10);  and  some 
knowledge  of  such  revelations  being  diffused  to  different  nations,  among  others 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY.  141 

ing  veneration  and  gratitude,  is  it  not  certain  that  whatever  of  the 
same  excellences  and  merits  he  asserts  or  admits  as  belonging  to 
another  and  as  constituting  claims  for  him  to  the  same  estimation, 
honor,  and  regard  (suppose  to  Jefferson,  John  Adams,  or  any  other), 
we  ought  to  believe  him  as  fully  meaning  all  he  says?  In  exact  pro- 
portion to  the  importance  he  plainly  attaches  to  what  he  admits  and 
asserts  respecting  the  former,  and  the  earnestness  with  which  he 
affirms  his  claims,  we  are  bound  to  assume  that  he  fully  intends  all 
he  admits  and  asserts  respecting  the  latter.  If  he  admits  and  asserts 
that,  official  relatio7is  excepted,  the  latter  is  equal  to  the  former,  we 
certainly  ought  to  believe  that,  in  his  opinion,  truth  and  fact  require 
him  to  do  so.  But  suppose,  further,  he  clearly  sees  that,  if  his 
readers  should  understand  him  to  mean  more  respecting  the  latter 
than  he  really  does,  it  would  greatly  injure  or  even  ruin  them,  then 
certainly,  if  truly  benevolent,  he  would  be  as  select  and  careful  as 
possible  in  his  use  of  terms  and  forms  of  expression,  and  assuredly 
he  would  rather  stop  short  of  saying  all  he,  in  truth,  might  on  the 
side  where  he  knew  the  danger  lay,  than  go  full  length  in  saying  it. 
Whatever  he  would  say,  which  in  his  view  might  even  feebly  tend  to 

Egypt,  it  was  obtained  there  and  taken  to  Greece  by  Orpheus,  Pythagoras,  and 
Plato.  (See  Cudworth's  Int.  Sys.  of  the  Universe,  Chap.  IV.,  XXXVI.  See  also 
a  recent  Article  in  the  Bib.  Sac.)  But,  when  this  doctrine  is  recognized  as  it  is,  it 
is  not  only  seen  that  it  in  no  sense  conflicts  with  reason,  but  that  the  whole  consti- 
tution of  the  truths  and  facts  of  the  Gospel  is  grounded  upon  and  conformed  to  it, 
and  that  the  unipersonal  notion  compels  the  rejection  of  them  all,  and  of  the 
measureless  manifested  love  of  God  in  them.  The  only  method,  therefore,  for 
ascertaining  the  real  truth  of  this  doctrine  is  to  begin  by  discarding  the  notion 
that  untaught  reason  does  or  can  know  anything  for  or  against  it,  and  with  this,  of 
course,  the  groundless  assumption  that  God  is  only  tmipersonal,  which  is  a  breeder 
of  intellectual,  moral,  and  theological  miasms  and  plagues  worse  incomparably 
than  Rhine-ooze  ever  bred,  and  to  accept  the  Scriptural  teaching  and  data  in  their 
plain,  normal,  exegetical  sense.  To  say  that  the  doctrine  of  three  Persons  in  the 
one  Divine  Essence  is  tritheism  is  alien  to  discrimination;  for  the  latter  is  the 
notion  of  three  separate,  independent  essences  or  beings,  each  a  Person,  a  God, 
and  rests  on  the  assumption  that  being  and  person  are  precisely  one  and  the  same. 
Not  the  revealed  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  of  God,  which  avoids  on  the  one  side  the 
error  that  He  is  only  unipersonal,  and  on  the  other  that  of  Tritheism,  but  the 
assumption  that  reason  teaches  the  intrinsic  essence  and  the  mode  of  existence  of 
God,  and  specially,  of  the  two  errors  stated,  the  one  placed  first,  that  He  is  only 
unipersonal,  which  is  founded  upon  it,  is  the  fearful  Rhine-slush,  in  which  "  armies 
whole  have  sunk"  sheer  down,  alas,  how  deep!  from  the  Divine  light  and  glories 
of  the  three  Persons,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  in  the  one  being  of  God  as 
revealed  in  the  Living  Oracles,  and  from  the  matchless  circle  of  truths  and  facts  of 
'the  Gospel  vitally  correlated  to  them  separately  and  in  common.  (See  Howe's 
Calm  Discourse  of  the  Trinity.) 

As  to  the  many-centuried  illustration  of  light,  new  burnished  by  this  polisher, 
we  must  say  of  it,  as  we  doof  a,ll  attempted  ones  since  the  first,  it  is  really  none  at 
all;  for  what  illustration  of  the  mode  of  existence  of  the  infinite,  spiritual,  incom- 
prehensible essence  of  God  by  any  sense  object  is  or  can  be  possible?  Any  illus 
tration  of  the  purely  incomprehensible  is  a  luais  a  non  lucendo.  If  God  is  not 
TRIPERSONAL,  a  real  atonement  is  impossible,  and  Christianity  false. 


142  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

lead  them  to  ruin,  or  into  danger  of  it,  he  would  say  only  because 
he  sincerely  believed  the  rights  of  truth  and  the  greatest  good 
required  him  to  say  it;  and  we  would  therefore  be  bound  to  credit 
him  with  meaning  all  that  his  language  expressed,  since  not  to  do 
this  would  impugn  his  character  or  capability,  or  both. 

§  82.    WHAT   THE    ADOPTION  OF  TRINITARIANISM  BY  THE  MAIN  MASS  OF 
THE  CHURCH  FROM  ITS  BEGINNING  ARGtJES. 

How  these  suppositions  apply  to  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  supreme 
Author  of  the  Scriptures,  to  their  teachings  on  the  matter  of  the 
three  Persons  in  the  one  Divine  Essence,  and  to  the  Son  of  God 
Himself  and  His  teachings  recorded  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit, 
we  need  not  stop  to  show.  But  we  ask  every  intelligent  reader 
thoroughly  to  consider,  in  connection  with  them,  the  momentous 
fact,  that  these  teachings  of  the  Spirit  and  of  our  Lord  in  the  Scrip- 
tures are  recorded  with  so  many  repetitions,  such  a  variety  of 
expression,  and  such  necessary  implications,  that  the  great  mass  of 
their  readers  from  the  Apostles'  times  down,  including"  a  succession 
of  the  most  illustrious  minds  and  accomplished  scholars  and  critics 
that  have  ever  existed  and  shed  light,  luster,  and  influence  on  man- 
kind, have  believed  with  most  perfect  conviction  that  they  do  posi- 
tively teach  the  Trinity  of  Persons  in  God.  They  have  believed 
that  they  would  be  guilty  of  the  greatest  possible  vice  of  scholars, 
critics,  or  professed  reasoners,  that  of  willfully  rejecting  the  plain, 
normal  meaning  of  the  Scriptures,  and  of  torturing  their  language 
to  force  its  real  meaning  out  of  it  from  repugnance  to  it,  and  to 
force  a  false  one  of  mere  assumption  into  it,  if  they  did  not  receive 
this  doctrine  in  the  only  legitimate  sense  of  the  inspired  language. 
Is  it,  then,  credible  or  conceivable,  according  to  any  theory  of 
inspiration  which  recognizes  the  Bible  as  a  reliable  revelation  from 
God,  reliable  both  by  the  influence  and  guidance  of  the  Spirit 
on  its  writers  and  by  containing  the  teachings  of  our  infallible  Lord, 
who  both  knew  perfectly  what  they  wished  expressed,  and  how  to 
express  or  to  secure  the  best  expression  of  it,  and  who  also  knew 
how  the  great  mass  of  their  readers  in  all  after  time  would  be  led 
into  radical  error  and  perversion,  if  they  have  been,  concerning  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  if  what  Scripture  contains 
concerning  them  is  not  so  stated  as  to  express  the  truth,  but  the 
contrary,  and  yet  caused  or  permitted  those  contents  to  be  given  as 
they  are?  Is  it  not  certain  from  everything  in  the  case,  including 
their  object  in  giving  these  teachings,   that  they  would  not  have 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY.  143 

given  them  at  all,  certainly  not  as  they  are,  if  they  had  not  designed 
that  their  readers  should  understand  them  just  as  the  great  mass  of 
them  always  have?  Is  it  credible  or  conceivable  that,  having 
asserted,  in  opposition  to  all  polytheism  and  creature-worship,  so 
often  and  peremptorily  that  God  is  one,  and  equally  forbidden  the 
least  recognition  of  any  other,  they  would  in  the  same  book,  and 
without  explanation  or  appearance  of  consciously  saying  anything 
contradictory  or  inconsistent,  assert  and  necessarily  imply  that  the 
Father  is  God,  the  Son  is  God,  and  the  Spirit  is  God,  ascribing  to 
each  all  the  Divine  attributes  of  the  others,  and  representing  them 
as  speaking  to  and  of  each  other  and  each  of  Himself  as  God,  if  such 
were  not  the  actual  fact  and  truth  ?  Is  it  credible  or  conceivable  that 
they  should  thus  knowingly  and  therefore  designedly  so  teach  as  to 
precipitate  all  their  readers,  who  accept  their  utterances  in  their 
plain,  obvious  meaning,  into  that  very  perversion  respecting  God, 
which,  in  other  teachings  in  the  same  revelation,  they  have  branded 
with  such  terrible  denunciations,  dooming  all  in  and  persistent  in  it 
to  God's  avenging  curse?  What  kind  of  character  is  this  to  impute 
to  them?  But  the  case  is  made  still  worse  by  the  fact,  that  the  clear- 
seeing  portion  of  this  main  mass  of  all  who  have,  from  the  first, 
accepted  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  the  Spirit  in  their  manifest 
sense,  have  seen  that  the  whole  redemptive  measure,  set  forth  in  the 
Scriptures,  especially  in  the  Gospel,  necessarily  rests  upon  the 
eternal  fact  of  a  Trinity  of  Persons  in  the  being  of  God.  But  for 
this  fact,  no  such  measure  would  have  been  possible;  nor  could 
there  have  been  an  authentic  revelation  of  one  from  God;  and  the 
Scriptures  containing  the  professed  one  which  we  have  could  be  only 
an  inexplicable  enigma  of  human  invention,  because  it  is  impossible 
to  even  imagine  how  the  conception  of  either  this  measure  or  the 
Triunity  of  God  could  have  entered  the  minds  of  its  writers,  since 
they  were  Jews  with  the  belief  of  their  race  and  time  thoroughly 
ingrained  in  them,  that  God  is  simply  one,  until  the  disciples  of 
Christ  were  initiated  by  Him  in  this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  rudi- 
mentally  taught  in  the  Old  Testament  and  still  more  fully  by  Him- 
self. One  fact  worth  noting  here  is,  that  the  common  result  of 
rejecting  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  rejection  with  it  not  only 
of  the  whole  evangelical  system,  but  of  the  Scriptures  as  an  inspired 
and  authentic  Divine  revelation. 


144  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN'. 

%  83.    PREDICAMENT  OF  THEISTIC   DENIERS  OF   THE  SCRIPTURAI.  REVE- 
LATION CONCERNING  GOD,  THE  TRINITY,  AND  THE  ATONEMENT. 

There  is,  then,  no  middle  ground  between  accepting  the  whole 
doctrine  of  the  redemptive  measure,  and  its  necessary  basis  of  the 
Triunity  of  God,  as  clearly  revealed  in  the  Scriptures,  and  discard- 
ing them  as  no  revelation  at  all  from  God.  All  theists  who  adopt 
the  latter  alternative  are  in  the  following  predicament.  They  be- 
lieve in  a  personal  God,  an  eternal  Mind  and  moral  Being,  infinite 
in  all  attributes  and  perfections,  who  is  the  Creator  and  Upholder 
of  all  worlds  and  creatures,  including  our  race  of  rational,  self-con- 
scious, moral  natures.  This  race,  when  moral  agents,  are  con- 
sciously a  race  of  sinners;  and,  by  reason  of  their  moral  nature,  sin 
darkens  and  blinds  their  moral  reason  and  judgment;  benumbs  the 
sensibility  of  their  conscience  and  their  susceptibility  of  all  best 
feeling;  works  in  them  the  habit  of  itself  and  of  all  the  connected 
action  of  the  intelligence  and  sensibility;  sets  them  in  hostility  to 
God  and  His  law;  prevents  all  holy  aims  and  ends;  causes  all  evil 
desires  and  passions,  and  prevents  good  ones;  produces  disorders, 
jarrings,  and  miseries  within  them;  urges  to  all  kinds  of  vices  and 
corruptions;  incites  to  social  antagonisms,  conflicts,  and  all  kinds 
of  injustice,  injuries  and  wrongs;  creates  conscious  guilt  or  desert 
of  punishment  from  God,  and  fills  them  with  fears  and  lookings  for 
of  stern  retribution  from  Him  in  their  immortal  future;  thus,  in 
every  way,  it  more  and  more  darkens,  perverts,  corrupts,  enslaves, 
degrades,  torments,  tempests,  and  curses  them  in  time,  and  covers 
their  whole  prospect  of  immortality  with  menaces  of  wrath  to 
come;  and,  besides,  it  sheds  corresponding  blight  and  death  on  all 
by  their  social  relations.  Now,  the  Creator  knew  perfectly,  before 
He  created  them,  the  total  history  of  the  moral  action  and  experi- 
ences of  every  one  of  them.  Yet  He  not  only  created  the  first  pair 
with  their  race-constitution,  but  when  they  sinned,  instead  of  cut- 
ting them  off  and  preventing  the  race,  He  spared  them  and  con- 
tinued it,  and  thus  has  the  responsibility  before  His  own  infinite 
conscience,  and  in  a  subordinate  sense,  before  the  finite  consciences 
of  the  rational  universe,  not  only  for  creating  the  first  pair  consti- 
tuted as  they  were  for  a  race,  but  for  continuing  them  and  their  race 
after  they  sinned  with  all  their  sinward  tendencies  and  consequent 
Ifabilities,  individual  and  social,  to  become  utterly  corrupt  and 
apostate,  and  the  certainty  of  everlasting  ruin  to  them  all,  unless 
redeemed  in  time.  One  thing  is  certain  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
from  Scripture,  and,  as  it  respects  mankind,  from   all  iiistory,  all 


GOD,    TRINITY,  AND  THE  ATONEMENT.  145 

reliable  observation,  and  all  confessed  experience,  that,  while  moral 
beings  can  by  their  own  will  plunge  into  sin  and  its  appalling  con- 
sequences, they  have,  in  and  of  themselves,  no  self-restoring  power; 
they  can  never  extricate  themselves  from  its  ever-tightening  bonds; 
and  God  alone  can  rend  these  off  and  extricate  them,  if  they  will 
yield  to  His  gracious  Spirit's  power. 

What,  then,  is  the  predicament  of  all  professed  theists,  who 
reject  God's  Scriptural  revelation  to  man,  and  with  it,  of  course,  the 
whole  redemptive  measure,  and  the  Triunity  of  God,  on  which  it 
rests?  Let  us  see.  Notwithstanding  God's  responsibility,  just  stated, 
for  the  existence  and  continuance  of  our  race,  and  His  absolute 
knowledge  of  their  whole  appalling  condition  and  prospects  as  sin- 
ners. He  has  never,  according  to  these  theists,  been  moved  by  the 
unutterably  mournful  spectacle  before  Him  to  manifest  the  least  pity 
for,  or  mercy  towards,  them,  so  as  to  do  the  least  thing  to  retrieve 
and  save  them!  Quietly,  through  all  the  centuries  since  creation's 
day.  He  has  sat  in  His  far  off  heaven  or  been  omnipresent  to  them 
in  total  indifference  to  their  state  and  fate,  and  has  seen  them,  gen- 
eration after  generation,  in  thronging  millions,  after  the  fitful,  and 
often  morally  delirious,  fever  of  their  sin-cursed  lives,  plunging  pre- 
cipitate over  death's  precipice  into  an  utterly  unilluminated  eternity 
with  all  their  guilt  sitting  heavy  on  them,  and  yet  has  never  deigned 
to  communicate  to  them  a  single  word  of  information  or  instruction 
to  relieve  their  darkness,  to  guide  them  a  single  step,  to  inspire  in 
them  the  least  hope,  to  place  before  them  a  single  motive  to  urge  or 
allure  them  to  attempt  a  religious  amendment  of  heart  and  life, 
to  impart  a  single  influence  to  help  or  comfort  them,  or  to  show 
that  He  has  any  interest  in,  concern  for,  or  care  about  them,  or 
what  becomes  of  them!  He  thus  leaves  them  to  grope  on,  sin  on, 
corrupt  on,  suffer  on,  die  on;  some  of  them  all  along  babbling  away 
about  what  reason  does  or  can  teach,  but  which  it  certainly  cannot, 
in  effort  to  make  out  that  man  needs  no  other  revelation  than  it 
gives;  some  crying  up  materialistic  science  as  the  chief  concern  of 
man,  and  trying  to  substitute  even  that  which  is  falsely  so-called  for 
all  moral  and  religious  science  and  its  immortal  importance;  some, 
in  true  heathen  style,  going  after  lying  spirits  to  seek  from  them 
what  they  consciously  need,  a  revelation;  vast  portions  of  them, 
plunging  and  sinking  into  grossest  immoralities,  vices,  crimes,  and 
every  species  of  enormity  and  degradation;  whole  nations  and  pop- 
ulations of  them  utterly  perishing  from  the  earth,  having  had  no 
means  of  knowing  any  more  than  the  heathen  always  have  about 


1^6  GOD,   CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

Him,  about  his  attributes,  character,  government,  disposition,  and 
designs  towards  them,  whether  He  can  have  mercy  upon  and  save 
them,  loves  or  hates  them — or  about  themselves  as  creatures  and 
sinners,  their  relations  to  Him,  their  guilt,  their  need  of  salvation, 
how  it  is  possible,  and  their  future  state — not  knowing  enough  to 
preserve  them  from  polytheism  and  idolatry,  or  even  grossest  fetich- 
ism,  if  the  teachings  of  the  one  wondrous  Book,  which  these  pro- 
fessed theists  discard  as  an  authentic,  inspired  revelation  from  God, 
had  never  been  given  to  any  part  of  mankind.  They  cannot  act, 
except  under  the  influences  upon  and  the  motives  before  them;  and, 
if  they  are  ignorant  of  precisely  such  moral  and  religious  facts  and 
truths  as  the  Bible  contains,  and  without  their  motives,  and  are  in 
essential  error  and  under  its  motives,  and  if  without  good  and  under 
evil  influences,  it  is  vain  to  expect  that  with  their  enormous  pre- 
verse  tendencies,  they  ever  will  act  rightly  and  form  good  charac- 
ters, aud  not  wrongly  and  form  bad  ones.  Hence,  without  an 
authentic  revelation  from  God,  such  as  we  hold  the  Bible  to  be,  and 
such  motives  as  it  contains  and  influences  as  are  connected  with  it, 
mankind  never  would  improve  in  a  religious  and  moral  sense  to  the 
end  of  time.  Never  have  they  improved  in  this  sense  anywhere  or  in 
any  age,  not  a  nation,  tribe,  or  family  of  them;  and,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  they  must,  as  always  in  the  past,  grow  more  and  more 
corrupt  and  sink  as  plummets  do  in  water.  And,  sinking  in  this 
sense,  they  must,  as  they  always  have  done,  soon  sink  in  every  other 
sense,  till  utter  extinction  or  basest  degradation  is  reached  and  they 
become  either  mere  historical  existences  or  ignominious  shadows  of 
their  less  degenerate  former  selves,  fit  only  to  "■  point  a  moral,  or 
adorn  a  tale  "  for  all  who  fail  to  discern  the  real  cause  of  their  ruin. 
A  law  of  development  and  progress  in  man?  You  may  search  all 
the  history  of  the  heathen  world  from  its  beginning,  as  the  Lord 
through  His  prophet  said  He  would  "  search  Jerusalem  with  can- 
dles," for  the  least  scintilla  of  such  a  law,  and  it  will  not  be  found; 
and  it  will  certainly  be  found  nowhere  else.  If  such  a  law  ever 
existed,  it  was  utterly  abrogated  as  far  as  religion  and  morality,  and 
as  all  else  dependent  on  these,  or  beyond  temporary  flushes  and 
glimmerings,  soon  hid  by  clouds  or  swallowed  in  night,  are  con- 
cerned, the  moment  the  first  sin  brought  blight  on  the  race.  The 
only  law  shown  by  the  entire  history  of  the  heathen  world  down  all 
its  thousands  of  years  and  through  all  its  vast  majorities  of  man- 
kind is  one  by  which  that  world  has  always  sunk  from  bad  to  worse 
to  all  its  superstitions  of  polytheism,  idolatry,  fetichisrn,  pantheism, 


GOD,    TRINITY,  AND  THE  ATONEMENT.  147 

and  atheism,  and  to  all  demoralization,  corruption,  degradation, 
and,  vast  portions  of  it,  to  utter  destruction  from  the  earth.  What 
say  all  the  records  and  testimonies  from  highest  antiquity  down  con- 
cerning this  law  of  retrogression?  What  say  all  the  mounds,  ruins, 
and  wastes  of  extinct  cities,  nations  and  vast  populations,  utterly 
vanished?  The  fit  epitaph  for  them  all  would  be — "  Blighted  and 
destroyed  by  the  law  of  development  and  progress,  reversed  as  it  is 
in  mankind  in  sin,  and  without  an  authentic,  inspired  revelation 
from  God,  and  His  gracious  intervention  for  man's  salvation 
recorded  in  and  connected  with  it."  For  the  reasons  shown,  and 
others  set  forth  in  another  place  in  this  work,  man  never  would, 
and,  from  his  subjective  state  and  lack  of  requisite  objective  mo- 
tives, never  could  restore  himself  to  right  and  vital  relations  to  God 
more  than  he  can  raise  himself  from  the  dead.  Whoever  writes  a 
book  "  On  the  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,"  or  "  On  Civ- 
ilization," or  "On  the  so-called  Absolute  Religion,"  or  on  any  sub- 
ject, with  an  aim  to  set  aside  the  Bible  and  its  inspired  teachings 
respecting  man's  lost  condition,  the  measure  of  redemption,  and  all 
involved  in  these,  and  omits  or  denies  these  radical  factors  for  the 
comprehension  and  exhibition  of  the  real  case  in  such  a  work,  nec- 
essarily misconstrues  the  whole  matter.  He  misshapes  such  perti- 
nent facts  as  he  has,  denies  or  invents  others,  and  thus  simply 
romances  in  contradiction,  not  of  the  Bible  only,  but  of  all  history 
of  the  heathen  world,  all  reliable  observation,  and  all  scientific  con- 
ceptions of  what  the  nature  of  a  genuine  religion  and  a  genuine 
morality  must  be.  In  view,  now,  of  this  whole  appalling  condition 
of  mankind  in  sin  and  without  a  Divinely  inspired  revelation  and  a 
manifested  gracious  intervention  of  God  to  restore  them  to  Himself 
and  all  good  forever,  if  we  judge  the  case  according  to  the  law  as 
given  by  both  moral  reason  and  Scripture,  and  as  ever  maintained 
by  conscience,  what  must  we  think  of  the  character  of  God,  if,  de- 
spite His  responsibility  for  their  existence,  both  as  created,  and  as 
continued  by  Him,  when  the  first  pair  had  sinned,  notwithstanding 
their  inherited  evil  tendencies,  He  has  remained  wholly  indifferent 
concerning  them,  and  has  neither  given  them  such  a  revelation,  nor 
made  such  an  intervention?  What  colors  of  language  or  thought 
could  paint  Him  dark  enough?  Yet  such  is  the  God  of  infidel  the- 
ism or  Deism;  and  it  is  from  preference  of  this  imaginary,  loveless, 
unjust,  self-hiding  God,  that  it  rejects  the  revelation  of  the  true  one, 
and  all  the  manifestations  recorded  in  it  of  His  measureless  love, 
His  justice,  mercy  and  grace — the  full- orbed  moral  perfection  of  the 


148  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

Triune  Christian  God,  and  all  the  truth  and  fact,  all  the  motives, 
and  all  the  influences  in  and  connected  with  that  revelation  and 
those  manifestations?  Its  imagined  Qo^  is  substantially  the  lazy  one 
of  Epicurus;  and  yet  it  is  constantly  panegyrizing  this  ill-charactered 
substitution  for  the  real  Christian  one  as  transcendently  excelling  in 
character  and  the  realization  of  the  ideal  of  absolute  goodness, 
although  never  having  made  a  single  manifestation  of  love  to  man- 
kind, unless  in  ordinary  Providence.  What  could  be  more  prepos- 
terous? 

§  84.    NO  PRESUMPTION  AGAINST  ANY  DOCTRINE  OF  CHRISTIANITY,  BUT 
A  DECISIVE  ONE,  A  MORAL  CERTAINTY  THAT  IT    IS    TRUE. 

In  view  of  all  thus  shown,  we  may  now  take  the  advanced  posi- 
tion, that,  not  only  is  there  no  inconsistency,  contradiction  of  rea- 
son, or  absurdity  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  or  in  any  doctrine 
embraced  in  the  Christian  system,  and  so  no  antecedent  presump- 
tion, even  the  faintest,  against  all  or  any  of  these  doctrines,  but,  in 
the  fact  itself  that  the  Scriptures  come  to  mankind  as  a  declared 
revelation  from  God,  and  teach  the  facts  and  doctrines  they  do, 
there  is,  aside  from  all  external  evidences  and  proofs  of  their 
Divine  origin,  although  these  together  are  invincible,  not  only  a  pre- 
sumption, but  one  of  the  strongest  character,  a  real  moral  certainty, 
that  they  are  such  a  revelation,  and  that  every  doctrine  taught  in 
them  is  an  authentic  Divine  verity.  It  is  utterly  incredible  that 
God,  having  created  mankind  moral  beings,  and  such  therefore  that, 
if  they  would  render  pure  moral  love  to  Him  and  each  other,  they 
would  infallibly  possess  all  the  blessedness  of  its  natural  conse- 
quences and  of  His  favor  and  rewards,  and,  if  they  would  sin,  they 
would  as  infallibly  receive  all  the  blight  and  curse  of  its  natural  con- 
sequences and  His  penal  retributions;  and  that,  when  the  first  pair 
sinned,  and  involved  their  entire  posterity  with  them  in  all  the  con- 
sequential and  penal  results  of  their  apostasy,  all  which  were  abso- 
lutely foreknown  by  God  as  they  have  been  and  will  be  developed 
in  every  nation,  tribe,  family,  and  person.  He  nevertheless  con- 
tinued the  race,  and  has  exercised  such  manifest,  careful  and  bene- 
ficent providence  over  and  for  it — we  say,  it  is  utterly  incredible,  if 
we  believe  Him  a  good  Being,  that  He  should  not  have  devised,  and 
purposed  to  execute,  in  the  best  way  and  time,  a  merciful  and  gra- 
cious measure  for  their  salvation.  If  He  is  benevolent,  not  only  are 
all  the  assumed  presumptions  of  infidelity,  and  of  all  denials  of  the 
evangelical  doctrines  and  system  utterly  groundless,  but  there  is  the 


CONTENTS  OF  A  REVELATION. 


149 


Strongest  possible  antecedent  presumption,  a  clear  moral  certainty, 
that  He  would  give  them  an  authentic  revelation  of  all  facts  and 
and  truths  essential  to  their  having  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  Him- 
self, themselves,  and  the  relations  between  Him  and  them;  that  He 
would  intervene  in  the  most  effective  way  possible  for  their  salva- 
tion, and  fully  inform  them  in  His  revelation  of  the  intervention, 
and  how  to  be  restored  through  it  to  right  relations  to  Himself; 
that  the  revelation  would  contain  and  evolve  upon  them  the  weight- 
iest possible  motives  to  counterpoise  all  those  urging  to  sin,  and  to 
lead  them  to  all  rectitude,  and  would  be  connected  with  the  strong- 
est possible  influences  to  bring  them  to  yield  to  those  motives  and 
thus  to  be  saved. 

§  85.    MANKIND    COULD    NOT    ANTICIPATE    WHAT    THE    CONTENTS    OF    A 
REVELATION  OR  THE  MANNER  OF  ITS  COMMUNICATION  WOULD  BE. 

Men  could  have  no  precedent  knowledge  of  what  the  contents 
or  manner  of  communication  of  a  revelation  from  God  would  be, 
or  what  special  interventions  or  manifestations.  He  would,  should, 
or  could  make;  and  hence  they  could  have  no  rational  presumption 
against  either  the  former  when  given  or  the  latter  when  made.  But, 
concerning  a  revelation,  we  can  noiv,  since  it  has  been  made,  see 
that  it  must  be  fronted  against  all  polytheism,  idolatry,  supersti- 
tions, delusions,  perversions,  and  sin,  and  must  set  forth  all  facts  and 
truths  essential  for  men  to  know  about  God — His  relation,  as  Cre- 
ator and  Preserver,  to  all  worlds  and  their  living  occupants — His 
real  moral  character — His  law  and  government  over  mankind  and 
all  intelligent  creatures — His  relations  to,  and  disposition  towards, 
mankind  as  sinners — what  He  has  done  and  proposes  to  do  for 
them,  what  He  requires  them  to  do,  and  the  final  destines  of  the 
saved  and  the  lost.  We  also  noiu  see,  that,  in  order  to  front  and 
counteract  the  monstrous  evils  of  the  heathen  world,  and  to  pre- 
serve His  chosen  people  of  Israel,  and  through  them  to  prepare  the 
way  for,  and,  at  the  fullness  of  time,  execute  a  consummate  measure 
for,  the  salvation  of  as  many  as  possible  of  mankind.  His  interven- 
tions and  manifestations  must,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  largely  con- 
sist in  or  involve  miracles,  stupendous  wonder-works,  deeds  and 
displays  of  omnipotence,  of  both  judgment  and  mercy,  demonstra- 
tive to  all,  both  Israelites  and  heathen,  having  knowledge  of  them, 
that  He  is  absolute  Ruler  of  nature,  as  well  as  of  angels  and  men, 
and  that,  besides  Him,  all  other  so-called  gods  are  lying  vanities; 
and  thus,  while  putting  the  fear  of  Him  and  the  dread  of  Him  on 


I50  GOD,   CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAAT. 

the  heathen,  He  was  impressing  the  chosen  people  with  awe  of  His 
holy  and  righteous  sovereignty,  and  at  the  same  time  merciful  and 
gracious  disposition  towards  all,  but  especially  those  who  truly  seek 
His  forgiveness  of  sin  and  His  restoring  favor.  The  fact  that  we 
have  a  professed  revelation,  having  the  opposite  characteristics 
stated,  and  that  it  records  a  continuous  series,  displayed  through 
the  centuries  requiring  them,  of  Divine  interventions  and  manifesta- 
tions, culminating  in  the  supreme  and  stupendous  one,  which  all  the 
preceding  prepared  for,  heralded,  and  pointed  to — that  miracle  of 
miracles,  the  Eternal  and  only-begotten  Son  of  God  incarnate, 
living  among  men,  teaching  as  never  man  taught,  being  emphatically 
the  miracle-worker,  the  voluntary  submitter  to  His  sufferings  and 
death  to  save  men,  the  riser  from  the  dead  on  the  third  day  and 
ascender  to  the  Mediatorial  throne  in  heaven.  According  to  its 
own  testimony,  this  revelation  throughout  was  given,  and  all  the 
interventions  and  manifestations  it  records  were  performed  by  God 
for  no  ends  that  imposture  could  aim  at,  but  only  to  bring  lost  men 
back  to  Himself  and  to  all  the  benefits  and  blessings  of  true  reli- 
gion and  His  infinite  love  and  favor.  This  whole  aggregate  fact  has, 
we  say,  all  through  it,  like  light  through  a  diamond,  all  radiant 
from  it,  like  light  from  the  sun,  a  self-demonstrating  evidence  and 
proof  that  it  is  from  God;  that  He  inspired  and  guided  holy  men  to 
write  its  successive  parts,  each  when  He  had  prepared  the  way  for 
it  till  it  was  complete;  and  that  it  was  thus  given  in  the  best  possi- 
ble way  and  form  in  which  it  could  be  to  fulfill  its  beneficent  ends 
among  men. 

§  86.    THE  INFIDEL  NOTION    OF  WHAT    THE    LOVE    OF  GOD    IS,  ARRAYED 
AGAINST  THE  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS,  OF  NO  WEIGHT. 

Infidels  and  deniers  of  the  redemptive  system  revealed  in  the 
Scriptures  are  constantly  arraying  against  it  and  its  involved  facts 
and  truths  respecting  both  God  and  man  their  notion  of  the  love  of 
God.  We  have  already  shown  the  groundlessness  of  their  assump- 
tion of  knowing  about  His  love  any  more  than  the  heathen  have 
always  known  of  it,  except  as  they  have  necessarily  received  some 
knowledge  of  it  from  that  revelation  which  they  discard  or  dispute. 
What  we  now  assert  against  them,  much  as  it  may  astonish  them,  is, 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  love  of  God,  as  known  or  believed  in  Chris- 
tendom beyond  what  was  ever  known  of  it  among  the  heathen,  is 
not  only  derived  from  the  Scriptures,  but  rests  entirely  on  the  other 
doctrine  in  them  of  His  Triunity  and  their  teachings  concerning  the 


GOD'S  LOVE  FOR  MANKIND.  151 

manifestations  of  each  of  the  three  Persons  in  the  measure  of 
redemption.  We  neither  do  nor  can  know  anything  about  the  real 
love  of  any  being  by  our  reason,  or  except  as  it  is  manifested  to  or 
before  us,  or  is  authentically  testified  to  us  by  others,  to  or  before 
whom  it  has  been  manifested.  If  the  Bible,  which  gives  all  the  tes- 
timony men  have  concerning  His  love  for  mankind,  though  sinners, 
and  its  manifestations,  except  those  of  nature  and  providence,  and 
those  personal  ones  of  it  which  individual  Christians  profess  to 
receive  from  Him,  is  not  an  authentic  revelation  from  Him,  will  any 
infidel  tell  us  of  any  other  manifestation  of  it  than  those  of  nature 
and  providence,  which  the  heathen  have  always  had,  ever  made  by 
Him  to  men?  What  communication  has  He  ever  made  to  them,  or 
when  did  He  ever  lift  a  hand  to  help  them?  How  has  He  ever  by 
word  or  deed  manifested  any  pity  for  them,  any  interest  in  them, 
any  concern  or  care  what  becomes  of  them,  any  disposition  of 
mercy  or  grace,  of  willingness  or  desire  to  rescue  them  from  their 
evil  condition  as  sinners,  liable  to  the  penalty  and  under  the  power 
and  blight,  spiritual  darkness  and  hopelessness  of  sin?  Where,  then, 
is  there  any  proof  or  evidence  that  He  is  love,  in  even  the  infidel 
sense  of  the  word?  We  deny  that  there  is  any,  and  that  infidels 
know  of  any;  and  we  challenge  them  to  adduce  any  not  drawn  from 
the  Bible.  If  He  has  never  manifested  any,  what  but  idle  asser- 
tion is  it,  without  a  shadow  of  evidence  or  reason,  for  them  to  talk 
and  affirm  about  it,  as  they  constantly  do,  as  if  it  were  an  incontest- 
able postulate  of  reason,  though  reason  knows  nothing  of  it? 

§  87.    THE    ONLY    EVIDENCE    INFIDEr.S    CAN    HAVE    OF     GOD'S    LOVE    FOR 
MANKIND  AS   SINNERS. 

The  only  real  evidence  infidels  can  have  of  God's  love  for 
mankind  as  sinners  consists  in  such  shows  of  it  as  they  can  observe 
in  the  whole  course  of  His  providence;  for  the  shows  of  it  in  nature 
are  towards  them  as  creatures,  not  as  sinners,  and  are  not  evidence 
of  it  towards  them  as  sinners.  If  a  human  father  should  build  and 
furnish  a  magnificent  mansion  for  his  children  as  loyal  and  obedient 
to  him,  how  would  the  shows  of  his  love  for  them  as  such  furnish 
any  evidence  to  them,  if  they  should  turn  disobedient  and  hostile, 
that  he  still  continued  to  love  them  and  would  not  punish  them  in 
just  displeasure?  They  could  furnish  none;  and  precisely  the  same 
is  true  of  the  shows  of  Cxod's  love  for  mankind  in  all  He  did  for 
them  in  creating  them  and  all  adapted  to  their  necessities  and  hap- 
piness.    He  created   and   constituted   them  to  love  and  obey  Him 


152  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  FLAM. 

and  to  be  blessed  in  so  doing,  and  not  to  evince  any  love  for  them, 
if  they  should  turn  sinners — a  distinction  which  should  not  be  over- 
looked. But  the  case  is  different  as  to  His  providence  in  preserv- 
ing them  and  in  all  His  dealings  with  them  as  persons,  families, 
communities,  nations,  and  a  race;  for  the  fact  that  He  has  preserved 
the  race,  and  the  general  tenor  of  His  providential  dealings  with 
them,  both  ordinary  and  special,  do  evince  and  prove  that  He  has  a 
viercifully  benevolent  disposition  towards  them.  But,  viewed  as  a 
whole  and  without  the  disclosures  of  revelation  to  furnish  solutions 
of  its  dark  riddles  and  frightful  enigmas.  His  providence  from  the 
first  has  seemed  to  present  goodness  and  severity  so  commingled 
and  cooperant  as  to  make  it  doubtful  which  predominated,  often 
even  compelling  the  conviction  that  the  latter  ruled,  that  His  benev- 
olence towards  mankind  is  less  than  His  anger.  For,  while  He  has 
"given  them  life  and  breath  and  all  things,"  He  has  also  visitec^ 
them  with  incalculable  evils — with  earthquakes,  tempests,  floods, 
famines,  pestilences,  and  the  whole  cohort  of  diseases  which  distress 
and  torment  them,  destroy  their  happiness  and  lives,  and  cause 
bereavements,  lamentations,  and  countless-  ills — so  that,  if  they  had 
no  Other  evidences  and  proofs  of  His  love  for  them  as  sinners  than- 
His  providence  alone  affords,  it  would  be  hid  behind  a  fearful 
eclipse,  and  leave  them  benighted  on  the  momentous  question 
whether  He  would  or  could  ever  confer  His  full  favor  upon  them 
and  give  them  deliverance  from  all  their  evils.  It  leaves  all  dark 
and  dubious,  a  gloomy  obscuration  thronged  with  ill  omens  and 
quaking  fears,  the  same  which  has  ever  enshrouded  all  heathen 
lands,  and  which  might  well  appall  even  infidelity  itself,  if  it  could 
see  things  as  they  are,  and  tiiink.  The  question — "  Does  God  really 
love  mankind?"  or,  "Is  He  benevolent?"  could  never  be  solved 
among  men,  but  only  answered  Yes  and  No,  the  No  the  terrible  con- 
viction of  most.  Who  can  ever  be  sufficiently  grateful  to  Him,  that 
He  has  not  left  it  in  this  dreadful  ambiguity,  but  has  given  us  a 
solution  of  it  such  as  Providence  alone  could  never  give  nor  even 
indicate.  What  an  effulgent,  joyous  light  burst  upon  the  world  In 
that  stupendous  measure  of  God,  of  which  we  are  told — "In  this 
was  manifested  the  love  of  God  towards  us,  because  that  God  sent 
His  only-begotten  Son  into  the  world,  that  we  might  live  through 
Him.  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He  loved  us, 
and  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins."  This  mani- 
festation is  the  Divine  light  which  scatters  the  darkness  and  reveals 
the  mystery  of  providence.    This  is  the  key  to  all  its  intricate  wards. 


UNBELIEVERS.  i„ 

the  solution  of  all  its  appalling  riddles.  In,  not  out  of,  this,  was  the 
love  of  God  manifested;  and,  when  John  uttered  the  words  quoted, 

he  doubtless  had  those  of  our  Lord  Himself  to  Nicodemus  in  mind 

"  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  on  Him  should  not  perish  but  have  eternal 
life."  Why  does  not  the  guilty,  conscience-racked  world  leap  for 
joy  at  the  peerless  good  news  of  this  unspeakable  outgoing  of  God's 
love  for  mankind  as  sinners,  and  at  the  same  time  for  the  universal 
and  eternal  holy  society? 

§  88.    PREDICAMENT    OF    THOSE    WHO    BELIEVE    ONLY    EXCERPTS    OR 
SELECTED  PARTS  OF  THE  BIBLE,  AND  DISCARD  ALL  OTHERS. 

Turning  now  to  those  who,   professing  a  certain  maimed  belief 
in  the  Bible  as  a  revelation   from   God,   deny  the   Trinity  and   the 
redemptive  system,  we  ask  them  what  manifestations  they  have  of 
God's  love   for   mankind  as  sinners,   after  their  denial,   more  than 
declared  infidels,  or  the  heathen  have  always  had?     If  they  do  not 
accept  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  and  especially  con- 
cerning God  and  His  manifestations  of  love  for  fallen  man,  on  what 
parts  of  its  teachings  can  they  rely  as  authentic?    They  as  really  fall 
back  on  the  mere  guesses  of  their  own  blind  minds  as  declared  infi- 
dels do,  and  as  the  heathen  have  always  done^  and  can  therefore 
know  nothing  about  the  points  named  or  any  others  rejected.     The 
Bible,  as  a  whole,  either  is  or  is  not  an  authentic   revelation   from 
God  of  all  the  facts  and  truths  it  expresses.     If  it  is  one,  all  its 
teachings  concerning  Himself  and  mankind.  His  love  for  them,  and 
His  whole  manifestation  of  it  in  the  measure  of  redemption  are  true; 
and  this  manifestation  of  it  is  revealed  as  made,  not  by  a  unipersonal 
God,  but  by  a  Trinity  of  Persons  in' one  Essence  of  Godhead.     The 
Father  gives  and  sends  His  only-begotten  Son;  the  Son,  affirmed  to 
be  God  and  equal  to  the  Father,  comes,  becomes  incarnate,  declares 
and  reveals  the  Father,  teaches   and  does  for  mankind  whatever  the 
Father  has  prescribed  to  Him,  voluntarily  suffers  and  dies  for  them, 
being  not  spared,  but  delivered  up  by  the  Father  to  undergo  all  He 
did;  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  proceeding  from  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
is  sent  by  them  jointly  to  fulfill  all  the  functions  ascribed  to  Him 
for  the  spiritual  renovation  of  sinful  men.     These  three  parts  thus 
performed  by  them  constitute  the  whole  manifestation  of  God's  love 
for  mankind  as  sinners;  and,  except  in  these  parts,  including  prepa- 
rations for  them  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  not  manifested 
to  them  as  such,  otherwise  than  in  providence,  already  shown.    How, 


154  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

now,  we  ask,  could  the  Father  perform  His,  if  He  had  no  such  Son? 
How  could  the  Son  perform  His,  if  He  and  His  Father  were  not 
distinct  Persons  and  agents  in  the  one  Godhead?  And  how  could 
these  two  jointly  perform  the  sending  of  the  Spirit,  and  He  perform 
His  part,  if  He  did  not  proceed  from  them,  and  is  not  a  Person  and 
agent?  How  could  each  of  them  perform  the  part  in  the  whole 
measure  ascribed  to  Him,  as  related  to  that  of  each  of  the  others,  if 
each  were  not  in  fact  and  in  relation  to  the  others  a  distinct  Person 
and  actor  in  the  one  Divine  Essence?  If  each  does  not  exist  in  it 
and  did  not  perform  the  part  ascribed  to  Him,  then  how  could  any 
such  manifestation  of  God's  love  for  sinful  men  as  the  measure  dis- 
plays possibly  be  made?     This  demands  consideration. 

§  89.    NO  BEING    CAN    REALLY    MANIFEST    THE    LOVE    OF  ANOTHER,  ETC. 

We  hold  it  certain  that  no  one  moral  being  can  really  ttiaiiifest 
the  love  of  any  other  one,  any  more  than  he  can  be  the  other,  and 
have  his  mind  and  heart,  disposition  and  consciousness.  He  can 
only  tell  others  of  it  as  it  has  been  manifested  and  expressed  to  him- 
self or  within  his  knowledge  by  some  means;  and,  in  addition,  he 
can,  as  an  authorized  agent,  ministerially  execute  special  offices  to 
accomplish  its  ends  towards  its  object  or  objects.  He  can  thus  be 
a  medium,  through  which  another's  love  can  be  in  some  limited 
measure  made  known;  and,  at  the  same  time,  he  can  also  more  or 
less  manifest  his  own;  but  his  doing  this  will  not,  in  itself,  be  mani- 
festing that  of  anyone  else.  But  it  is  certainly  impossible,  that  any 
creature,  human,  angelic,  or  supposed  superangelic,  could,  though 
perfect  in  holiness,  manifest  the  love  of  God  to  mankind,  especially 
His  love  towards  them  as  sinners.  Finite  in  nature  and  sustaining 
all  his  relations  to  other  like  beings  and  to  God,  owing  as  a  crea- 
ture constant,  perfect  obedience  to  God,  and  being  so  limited 
in  intelligence,  feeling,  and  will,  how  could  he  possibly  have  or 
manifest  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and  will,  the  mind  and  heart,  the 
whole  disposition  of  the  infinite  God,  related  as  He  is  to  all  His 
creatures,  and  especially  to  man,  as  their  Creator,  Preserver,  and 
Moral  Governor,  and  as  having  been  enormously  sinned  against  by 
man?  He  could  not  possibly.  As  God  alone  can  comprehend  Him- 
self, so  He  alone  can  manifest  His  own  love  to  mankind  or  any  other 
creatures,  while  objects  of  it,  however  related.  If,  therefore,  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  was  not  truly  God  in  just  the  same  sense  as  the  Father 
is,  that  of  being  a  Person  in  the  one  Divine  Essence,  He  could  not 
and  did  not  manifest  the  love  of  God  to  man,  but  only  His  own, 


GOD'S  LOVE  FOR  MANKIND.  155 

that  of  a  creature;  and,  at  most,  He  was  only  a  finite  medium 
through  whom  God  gave  a  mere  limited  show  of  it  by  creating  Him 
such  a  being  as  He  was,  man  or  more;  aiding  Him  to  develop  the 
character  He  did;  sending  Him  among  men  on  the  mission  He  ful- 
filled till  He  was  executed  as  a  martyr;  and,  by  the  manifestation 
and  example  of  Christ's  love  for  them,  showing  them  His  own  to 
the  extent  of  providing  and  sending  among  them  so  excellent  a 
creature.  If  such  were  the  case,  then  the  history  of  Jesus  Christ  in 
the  New  Testament  demonstrates  that  He,  the  creaiure,  manifested 
immensely  greater  love  for  them,  than  God  did  in  and  through  Him. 
But,  if  He  was  a  Person  in  the  Divine  Essence,  then,  not  only  the 
Father's  giving  and  sending  Him,  but  His  coming,  incarnation, 
whole  earthly  life  and  labors  among  and  for  men,  all  His  interest 
in,  and  sympathy,  suffering  and  death  for,  them,  all  recorded  of 
Him,  were,  with  equal  reality,  parts  of  a  manifestation  by  one  and 
the  same  God  of  His  merciful  love.  His  whole  heart  and  disposition 
towards  man  ruined  by  sin  against  Himself,  which  must  forever 
amaze  the  intelligent  universe  and  defy  all  creaturely  conce])tion. 
Let  it  be  distinctly  pondered. 

§  90.    HOW   THE    GREATNESS    AND    STRENGTH  OF  ANY  EEING'S  LOVE  FOR 
OTHERS  IS  SHOWN.       HOW  GOD's    FOR  MANKIND. 

The  measure  of  the  greatness  and  strength  of  the  love  of  any  being 
for  others,  deserving  or  undeserving,  is  shoiun  by  the  efforts,  self-denial, 
self-sacrifice,  and  suffering  to  which  he  subjects  himself  for  their  sake. 
What,  then,  must  the  measure  of  the  greatness  and  strength  of  the 
love  of  God  be  for  mankind,  who,  instead  of  rendering  to  Him  His 
due  of  love  and  its  obedience,  are  all  sunk  in  sin  and  enmity  against 
Him,  if,  nevertheless,  it  impelled  Him,  so  offended,  though  Creator 
and  Ruler,  not  only  to  restrain  His  justice  from  smiting  them  accord- 
ing to  their  ill-desert,  but,  notwithstanding  His  own  infinity  of  nature, 
and  exemption  from  all  touch  of  evil,  to  devise  and  execute  a  meas- 
ure involving  such  stupendous  condescension,  humiliation,  self- 
denial,  and  self-sacrifice  on  the  part  of  both  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  to  the  degree  on  the  part  of  the  latter  of  His  submission  to  all 
that  He  became,  did,  and  endured  till  His  mission  on  earth  was 
ended,  and  on  that  of  the  whole  Trinity  to  all  done  by  them  in  their 
respective  parts  from  Christ's  resurrection  till  now,  and  that  will  be 
done  by  them  till  time  ends,  to  effect  human  salvation.  The  meas- 
ure of  God's  love  for  mankind  is  infinite.  The  attempt,  therefore, 
to  substitute  any  manifestation,  which  a  creature  of  whatever  grade. 


156  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAH. 

though  specially  created  and  sent  among  them  by  Him  to  make  it, 
could  make,  for  this  direct,  infinite  one  is  a  feat  of  absurdity  vastly 
surpassing  an  attempt  to  substitute  the  flickering  light  of  a  candle 
at  noon  for  the  splendor  of  the  cloudless  meridian  sun.  But  we 
must  also  take  in  the  part  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  If  He  also  is  a  Per- 
son in  the  Godhead,  all  the  influences  and  operations  ascribed  to 
Him  in  the  Scriptures,  as  put  forth  for  the  renovation  and  salvation 
of  men,  are  equally  a  direct  manifestation  of  the  infinite  merciful 
love  and  heart  of  the  one  God  towards  our  sinful  race.  What  but 
boundless  fatuity  is  it,  to  turn  away  from  this  manifestation,  and  the 
revealed  fact  of  the  Trinity  on  which  it  rests,  and  to  substitute  for  it 
either  the  empty  shadow  derived  from  his  own  imagination  which 
the  infidel  calls  the  love  of  God,  or  any  anti-Trinitarian  supposed 
manifestation  of  it  through  the  gift  of  a  mere  missionary  creature  of 
any  grade  whatever  ? 

§  91.    ON   WHAT    THE    FACT    AND    DOCTRINE    OF  THE    LOVE    OF    GOD    FOR 
MANKIND  ENTIRELY  REST. 

The  inevitable  conclusion  is,  that  the  fact  and  doctrine  of  the 
love  of  God  for  mankind,  though  sinners,  in  any  Christian  sense  of 
the  term  love — in  any  beyond  that  dim  and  dubious  one  disclosed 
in  providence  alone  and  always  observable  by  the  heathen,  which  is 
the  infidel  and  Deistic  one — or  in  any,  which  has  proof,  evidence, 
or  even  probability  of  it  as  actually  manifested  by  God  Himself, 
rest  entirely  on  and  are  inseparable  from  the  revealed  fact  and  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  of  Persons  in  the  one  being  or  essence  of  God. 
Whoever  denies  the  foundation,  denies  the  superstructure;  and  who- 
ever denies  the  Trinity,  denies  not  only  the  manifestation  of  the 
love  of  God  for  our  guilty  race,  declared  in  the  Scriptures,  but  the 
very  possibility  of  any  direct,  personally  made  manifestation  of  it 
whatever — any  which  could  evince  the  least  degree  of  self-denial 
and  self-sacrifice  for  them,  or  disposition  to  act  anything  involving 
the  least  degree  of  these  to  save  them,  or  which  could  constitute  a 
measure  to  redeem  them  from  either  the  penalty  of  sin  by  atone- 
ment or  its  power  by  adapted  and  adequate  motives  and  influences, 
and  to  exalt  them  to  the  glories  and  blessedness  of  heaven.  For, 
ho7u  could  God,  an  infinite  Spirit,  if  only  one  Person,  perform  any  of 
the  parts  of  this  vianifestaticn  to,  and  for  the  redemption  of,  mankind, 
or  make  any  other  one  for  the  same  end?  How  could  He  possibly 
place  Himself  in  obvious  personal  relations  to  them,  and  directly 
manifest  interest  in  them,  pity  for  them,  merciful  love  and  grace 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD. 


IS7 


towards  them,  or  a  disposition  to  rescue  and  stive  them?  There  is 
in  mankind  everywhere  a  profound  sense  or  feeling,  conscience- 
born,  that  they  deserve  punishment  from  God  for  their  sin,  and  that 
He  is  not  their  friend,  but  is  hostile  to,  and  will  punish,  them.  This 
sense  fills  them  with  an  equally  profound  dread  and  distrust  of  Him, 
and  causes  them  to  shrink  from  Him  with  guilty  recoil  and  strong 
aversion.  This  state  and  attitude  of  their  minds  towards  Him 
nothing  could  overcome  and  dissipate,  but  some  most  impressive  and 
moving  manifestation  of  Himself  to  them  in  compassionate  kindness, 
in  obvious  intervention  to  save  them,  and,  in  that,  with  greatest  and 
most  expressive  exhibitions  of  self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  and  suffer- 
ing for  their  sakes — the  entire  manifestation  being  in  kind  and  manner 
perfectly  adapted  to  meet  their  whole  case  as  sinners,  to  affect  them 
to  their  hearts'  core,  to  overcome  and  remove  their  paralyzing  fear 
and  distrust  of  Him,  and  their  alienation  from  and  aversion  to  Him, 
to  inspire  hope,  to  win  their  confidence,  to  excite  gratitude,  and  to 
generate  within  them  positive  faith  in  and  an  all-controlling  love  of 
Him.  How  else  could  He  possibly  make  any  such  manifestation, 
than  in  the  way  the  Scriptures  declare,  by  the  Son's  incarnation,  or 
assumption  of  man's  nature  into  a  personal  union  with  His  Divine, 
by  living  with  them  as  a  fellowman  in  their  conditions  and  relations, 
by  freely  acting  and  conversing  with  them  in  a  human  manner,  by 
performing  miracles  in  attestation  of  His  Divine  nature  and  power, 
by  His  mission,  and  His  benevolence  to  and  sympathy  with  them  in 
their  sufferings,  and  by  revealing  to  and  teaching  them  all  facts  and 
truths  essential  for  them  to  know  concerning  God,  themselves,  and 
the  relations  between  them;  concerning  Himself,  His  mission,  and 
His  relations  to  both  the  Father  and  them;  concerning  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  His  agency;  and  concerning  their  salvation  through  His 
own  sufferings  and  death  voluntarily  undergone  in  their  stead  for 
their  benefit?  What  motives  would  He  thus  develop,  create,  and  roll 
upon  them  through  all  time! — motives  potent  to  move  all  open  and 
considerate  minds  as  winds  move  seas — those  of  His  amazing  self- 
humiliation,  self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  and  self-assumption  of  His 
appalling  sufferings  and  death  to  redeem  our  depraved,  hostile,  lost 
race — those  in  all  His  teachings,  in  His  earnest  reproofs,  solemn 
warnings,  affectionate  entreaties  and  expostulations,  terrible  threat- 
enings,  and  fearful  representations  of  the  doom  awaiting  the  incor- 
rigible— and  those  of  His  affecting  illustrations  of  the  profound 
interest  in  and  care  for  them  of  both  the  Father  and  Himself,  of  His 
tender  calls  and  invitations,  and  of  His  manifold  promises  of  ines- 


158  GOD,   CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

timable  blessings  in  this  life,  and  measureless  good  and  glory  in  that 
which  is  to  come.  These  motives  are  intrinsically  the  weightiest 
conceivable,  and  are  adapted  to  press  every  susceptibility  of  human 
souls  to  bring  them  to  yield  to  His  requirements  and  invitations. 
But  suppose,  now,  that  God  is  only  uiupersonal,  and  this  whole 
manifestation  is  necessarily  false;  for  how  could  He  make  it?  How 
could  He  abdicate  His  throne  and  government,  and  be  made  under 
His  own  law?  Who  would  administer  it,  while  He  was  under  it,  and 
"in  the  form  of  a  servant?"  How  could  He  be  given  and  sent  by 
Himself  as  incarnate? — be  His  own  Son? — do  and  suffer  all  He  did 
in  obedience  to  the  will,  the  command  of  Himself  as  His  own 
Father?  Even  if,  by  any  possibility,  or  for  any  good  end.  He  could 
incarnate  Himself,  it  could  not  be  to  make  an  atonement  "for  the 
remission  of  sins;"  for  how  could  He,  one  Person,  make  an  atone- 
ment to  Himself?  If  He  could  make  none,  we  deny  that  He  could 
forgive  sinners,  even  if  He  could  some  how  bring  them  to  repent- 
ance, if  He  has  and  cares  anything  for  a  universal  moral  system 
which  He  constituted  by  creating  a  universe  of  moral  beings,  neces- 
sarily interbound  by  the  same  moral  reason,  the  same  righteous  law 
of  moral  love  in  and  from  it,  essentially  the  same  natural  rights, 
with  moral  added,  if  obedient,  the  same  conscience,  substantially 
the  same  ideas  of  justice  both  as  ethical  and  as  retributive,  the  same 
intuitions  of  obligation,  the  same  sense  of  guilt  or  desert  of  punish- 
ment for  violation  of  it  or  sin,  the  same  sense  of  responsibility  and 
accountability  to  God  as  moral  Governor,  the  same  natural  ties  of 
fellow-feeling  and  sympathy,  the  same  moral  judgments,  condemna- 
tions, and  spontaneous  demands  for  the  retributive  punishment  of 
all  wrongers  and  injurers  of  others  according  to  their  ill-desert,  and 
the  same  moral  judgments,  approvals,  and  demands  for  rewards  to 
all  who  do  as  the  law  requires  to  others  according  to  their  good- 
desert.  The  sun  in  heaven,  with  the  whole  connected  solar  system, 
is  not  more  absolutely,  undeniably  manifest  than  the  universal 
moral  society  and  system  of  moral  beings  with  God  as  its  Creator 
and  Head.  What  can  be  more  preposterous,  anti-moral,  and  per- 
nicious to  all  involved  in  and  dependent  upon  this  universal  and 
eternal  moral  sytsem,  than  the  position  of  deniers  of  the  atonement  in 
common,  that  there  is  any  moral  necessity,  any  reason  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  excluding  God  from  dealing  with  every  one  personally, 
irrespective  of  the  moral  relations  he  sustains  by  character  and 
desert,  good  or  bad,  to  others  in  that  system  and  society,  or  any 
that   He   should    universally   and   without    exception   regard    and 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD.  159 

treat  each  only  and  precisely  as  he  stands  related  by  character  and 
desert  to  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  the  whole 
society,  God  included,  in  that  system  ?  Their  position  is  essentially 
a  denial  of  that  society  and  system,  and  so  of  the  law,  of  moral 
nature  containing  and  issuing  it,  of  God's  moral  government,  of 
His  moral  nature  containing  it,  of  its  requirement  of  pure  moral 
love,  of  justice  either  ethical  or  retributive,  of  all  obligation  not 
wholly  arbitrary  to  God  or  our  fellows,  of  all  natural  and  moral 
rights  and  dues  of  any  number  and  of  God,  fronting  all  others;  and 
thus,  since,  if  nothing  is  right,  nothing  can  be  wrong,  of  all  pos- 
sibility of  duty,  of  morality,  of  responsibility  and  accountability,  of 
obligation,  of  society  in  any  other  sense  than  that  of  a  universe  of 
incoherent,  monadic  enormities  of  being,  of  whom  are  mankind 
who  are  only  kept  from  all  anarchic  reciprocities  of  vice,  vil- 
lainy, and  every  variety  of  crime,  diabolism,  and  internecine 
destruction,  whether  sunk  in  savageries  or  raised  in  so-called  civil- 
izations, by  mutualities  of  fear,  interest,  or  gratification.  We  dis- 
card the  notion  with  utmost  aversion,  as  unworthy  of  respect,  and 
subversive  of  the  most  fundamental  truths  in  existence.  In  direct 
antagonism,  though  reverently  towards  God,  we  deny  that  He  has 
or  can  have  any  right,  for  all  the  reasons  in  those  truths  and  others, 
to  deal  with  one  of  them  as  if  wholly  disconnected  with  the  uni- 
versal society  and  system,  and  so  not  responsible  and  accountable 
to  that  society,  including  Him  as  its  Head,  for  any  wrong  he  has 
ever  done;  and  so  that  it,  or  He  in  it,  is  under  no  obligation  to 
reward  and  favor  anyone,  though  his  obedience  may  have  been  per- 
tect.  But,  to  say  that  God  will  forgive  all  sinners  of  whatever  degree 
of  criminality,  without  an  atonement  for  them,  if  only  they  will 
repent,  is  in  substance  to  assert  precisely  this  same  monstrous  contra- 
diction of  the  moral  law  and  the  whole  moral  system.  By  so  doing. 
He  would  brand  His  law  and  government  as  unnatural,  unjust,  and 
opposed  to  benevolence,  and  demonstrate  that  He  was  either  unjust 
in  constituting  mankind  with  natures  palpably  moral,  or  for  a  uni- 
versal reciprocity  of  responsibility  and  accountability  with  rewards 
and  punishments  according  to  actual  deserts  at  the  end  of  proba- 
tion, or  is  so  in  forgiving  them,  regardless  of  their  constitution,  of 
the  law  in  and  from  it  with  its  quality  of  justice,  and  of  the  rights, 
dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  His  whole  society  forever.  Not 
only,  therefore,  could  He  not  forgive  any  without  an  atonement 
merely  on  condition  of  repentance,  but  He  could  neither  offer  nor 
promise  to  do  so,  and  so  could  array  no  motives  before  them  to 


l6o  GOD,   CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN". 

allay  their  guilty  fears,  to  create  hope  in  them,  to  quell  their  aver- 
sion and  win  their  confidence,  to  inspire  their  gratitude  and  to  draw 
them  to  trust,  love,  and  obey  Him.  The  doctrines  of  the  Trinity,  of 
the  love  of  God  for  our  guilty  race,  and  of  a  substitutional  atonement 
as  a  basis  for  forgiveness  of  any  of  them,  therefore,  all  sta7id  or  fall 
together.  How  desolate  the  world  without  them!  How  environed 
with  hope  with  them! 

What  is  true  of  the  three  radical  doctrines  just  named  is  equally 
so  of  all  others  involved  in  the  Christian  system.  Not  only  is  there 
no  rational  presumption  against  any  of  them,  but  there  is  the 
strongest  possible  one,  a  moral  certainty,  in  favor  of  each  and  all 
of  them;  and  therefore  to  reject  all  or  any  of  them  essential  to  the 
Christian  system  is  not  rational,  while  to  accept  all  of  them  which 
are  essential  to  it  is  rational. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Scriptural  doctrine  of  the  incarnation  of  the  second  Person 
of  the  Trinity;  necessary  in  order  to  His  Mediatorial  relations  to  God 
and  man,  inchiding  His  ivhole  mission  on  earth,  and  His  relations  to 
His  redeemed  CImrch  and  the  intelligent  universe — all  involved  in 
Gods  eternal  Plan  of  the  material,  animated,  and  rational  creation. 

According  to  the  Scriptural  teaching,  the  only-begotten  Son  of 
God,  the  second  Person  of  the  Trinity,  was  sent  by  the  Father,  and 
came  of  His  own  most  free  consent,  into  our  world  by  entering  into 
the  relation  to  mankind,  fallen  and  lost,  which  was  constituted  by 
His  incarnation  in  the  man  Jesus.  In  order  to  accomplish  the  ends 
for  which  He  came,  it  is  declared  by  Himself,  by  Apostles,  and  by 
inspired  writers,  and  is  implied  in  His  whole  manifestation,  that  it 
was  necessary  for  Him  to  become  one  of  them — that  He  must  "in 
all  things  be  made  like  unto  His  brethren,"  "  must  be  born  of  a 
woman,"  must  assume  "the  form  of  a  servant"  and  thus  "come 
under  the  law,"  and  must  live  the  life  and  die  the  death  He  did, 
both  which  were  absolutely  foreknown  by  Him.  "Forasmuch  then 
as  the  children  are  partakers  »f  flesh  and  blood.  He  also  Himself 
likewise  took  part  of  the  same,  that  through  death  He  might  destroy 
him  that  had  the  power  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil;  and  deliver 
them  who  through  fear  of  death  were  all  their  lifetime  subject  to 
bondage"  (Heb.  2:14,  15). 

§  92.    THE  NOTION  THAT   THE    DIVINE    NATURE    OF    CHRIST  WAS  INCAR- 
NATED IN  A  MERE  HUMAN  BODY  WITHOUT  A  SOUL  GROUNDLESS. 

But  did  He  really  assume  a  human  nature  into  union  with  His 
Divine,  or  merely  a  body  like  a  huvian  one,  but  lacking  a  human 
mind,  soul,  or  spirit?  In  the  beginning  of  the  4th  century,  Apolli- 
naris  of  Laodicea  held  that,  as  the  Word  or  Divine  nature  of  Christ 
was  an  infinitely  perfect  reason  or  intelligence,  there  was  no  need 
for  a  human  reason  to  be  united  to  it  in  the  incarnation,  and 


IC5  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

objected,  besides,  that  he  could  not  conceive  how  two  reasons 
could  be  united  in  one  Person.  He  therefore  held  that  the  hu- 
man nature  of  Christ  had  no  reason  or  rational  soul,  but  that  it 
was  merely  a  body  with  an  aniftial  soitl,  holding  the  common 
belief  of  his  time,  that  man  has  two  souls — one  rational,  or  a  spirit; 
the  other  animal.  His  notion  was  rejected  by  the  Church;  and 
nothing  like  it  has  been  advanced  since,  until  in  our  time  one  even 
more  preposterous  has  been  set  forth,  which  is,  that  not  only  was 
there  no  human  soul  in  Christ's  body,  but  His  Divine  nature,  hav- 
ing dwarfed  itself  to  the  measure  of  a  just  originated  human  mind, 
was  the  only  soul  in  it,  and  that  it  gradually  developed  back,  as  the 
body  grew,  towards  His  primary  infinitude  !  *  The  notion  is  dupli- 
cate in  both  meaning  and  falseness.  First,  as  it  respects  His  Divine 
nature,  how  is  it  among  possibilities,  that  an  eternal,  necessarily 
existing  spiritual  being,  infinite  in  nature  and  attributes,  could  thus 
reduce  Himself,  even  to  the  lack  of  all  power,  all  knowledge,  all 
presence  beyond  the  point  of  His  actual  occupancy? — how,  that  the 
Creator,  Preserver,  and  Possessor  of  all  worlds  and  creatures  should 
thus  abolish  all  His  power  over,  all  His  knowledge  of,  all  His  ubi- 
quity in,  and  all  His  relations  to  it  and  all  its  contents,  and  dimin- 
ish Himself  to  the  condition  of  a  human  mind  in  its  first  existence? 
If  He  could,  how  could  He,  so  diminished,  exercise  love  or  any 
moral  activity,  or  not  be  a  void  of  all  voluntary  moral  character  ? 
But  further,  if  He  could,  why  not  as  well  commit  an  infinite  suicide 
by  self-annihilation,  and  thus  bereave  the  world  and  the  universe  of 
their  Maker  and  Upholder,  to  the  delight  of  atheist  madmen,  and 
the  woe  of  all  the  morally  rational?  Still  further,  if  He  could  do 
all  this,  why  could  not  the  Father  and  the  Spirit  also?  and  what 
would  then  be  the  condition  of  the  universe?  Not  a  very  desirable 
one,  we  think.  But  how  could  Flis  will  \.\m?,  change  or  abolish  His 
nature?  How  can  He  be  thus  mutable  in  nature?'  If  He  is,  so 
must  the  Father  and  Spirit  be,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  immutability 
of  God  is  a  fiction.  Further  yet,  if  He  could  so  abolish  His  own 
attributes,  including  His  power,  how  could  He  replace  them  either 
at  once  or  gradually?  and  would  He  be  God  until  they  were  replaced 
to  full  infinity!  What  would  He  be  in  the  meantime?  If  the  other 
Persons  of  the  Godhead  should  replace  them  to  Him,  would  they,  to 

(*)  This  was  written  six  or  eight  years  ago,  and  with  no  reference,  of  course, 
to  the  Kenosist  Article  in  Rev.  J.  M.  Williams'  Rational  Theology.  The  special 
reference  will  be  recognized  by  many,  and  need  not  be  stated.  "The  Humilia- 
tion of  Christ,"  by  Prof.  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.  D.,  gives  a  full  history  of  Kenosist 
authors  and  viewd/ 


THE  DIVINE  NATURE  OF  CHRIST.  163 

that  extent,  create  Him,  and  He  be  a  creature?  Besides,  if  they  could 
thus  recreate  Him  from  utmost  mfantility  to  infinity,  why  might 
they  not  so  change  all  finite  moral  beings  into  infinite  ones  by  crea- 
tive additions,  so  as  to  fill  the  universe  with  beings  at  once  infinite 
creatures  and  infinite  Gods?  What  a  wild  fantasy  the  notion  is  as  it 
respects  Christ's  Divine  nature  !  But,  secondly,  as  to  His  body,  it 
is  no  better.  A  mere  body  like  a  man's,  without  a  man's  soul  or 
mind  in  it,  is  not  a  man,  and  never  was,  if  it  has  always  been  void 
of  one;  so  that  this  notion  as  really  denies  the  manhood  as  the 
Deity  of  Christ.  How  could  a  mere  body,  like  a  man's,  whether 
occupied  by  the  minimized  Divine  nature  siipposed,  or  by  that 
nature  undiminished,  be  "  the  seed  of  the  woman,"  of  Abraham,  or 
of  David,  or  "  the  fruit  of  David's  loins,"  or  "  the  Son  of  man,"  or 
the  "one  mediator  between  God  and  men,  Jiiinself  man,  Christ 
Jesus"  (New  V.),  or  "  the  second  Adam,"  or  a  brother  of  men,  or 
"in  all  things  assimilated  to  His  brethren  "  (N.  V.),  or  anything  else 
implying  real  humanity?  As  "God  cannot  be  tempted  with  evil," 
so  only  a  human  soul  in  Jesus  could  "in  all  points  be  tempted  like 
as  we  are;  "  and  through  it  only  could  He  be  "  touched  with  the 
feeling  of  our  infirmities; "  be,  in  any  proper  sense,  an  example  to 
us  of  either  rectitude  towards  men  or  perfect  religion  towards  God; 
fulfill  the  human  part  of  the  atonement;  and  be  a  High  Priest  and 
Mediator  for  us  in  heaven.  The  whole  conception  of  a  Mediator 
between  God  and  man  requires  that  He  should  have  the  nature  of 
each,  of  one  as  really  as  of  the  other;  and  therefore  He  is  declared 
to  be  "  ZT/wi-^//"  man,  Christ  Jesus,"  since  His  humanity  specially 
qualifies  Him  for  that  function,  as  also  to  be  the  Judge  of  the  world, 
as  He  is  ordained  to  be.  Then,  as  physical  death  involves  the 
separation  of  the  human  soul  from  the  body,  the  fact  that  He 
commended,  not  His  Divine  nature,  but  His  spirit,  to  His  Father's 
hands  proves  that  He  had  one,  as  also  does  His  assertion  that  His 
soul  was  very  sorrowful  even  unto  death.  No,  there  is  no  basis  for 
this  notion,  which  would  rob  us  of  the  most  precious  link  between 
us  and  God,  a  highest  proof  of  His  amazingly  condescending  and 
tender  love  for  us  in  Christ.  It  is  through  His  perfect  humanity 
that  His  Divinity  comes  near  and  touches  us  with  its  vitalizing 
power — that  God  is  manifested  to  us  in  the  tenderness  of  His  mercy 
and  the  opulence  of  His  grace.  It  is  a  very  artery  out  of  God's 
heart  into  ours,  through  which  He  pulses  the  life-current  of  His 
infinite  fullness  of  pity  and  love  for  us  into  ours.  It  is  this  that 
adapts  Christ  to  all  our  case;  and,  without  this,  the  gulf  of  separatioa 


iG4  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

between  us  and  Him  must  have  continued  eternally  impassable. 
"No  admission"  for  any  Kenosist  notion  is  inscribed  over  the  gate 
of  Christianity. 

§  93.    WHAT  SCRIPTURE  TEACHES    RESPECTING  THE    TWO  NATURES  AND 
THE  PERSONALITY  OF  CHRIST. 

We  know  nothing  concerning  the  two  natures  and  the  person- 
ality of  Christ,  except  what  the  Scriptures  teach.  According  to 
these,  He  commonly  spoke  of  His  body  and  His  soul  or  spirit  just 
as  men  generally  do.  He  called  Himself  the  Son  of  Man;  and, 
though  less  frequently  for  prudential  reasons,  yet  often  and  with 
greater  emphasis,  the  Son  of  God,  His  only-begotten  Son,  and  His 
Son.  He  asserted  that  He  was  before  Abraham;  that  He  had  glory 
with  the  Father  before  the  world  was;  that  His  Father  loved  Him 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world;  that  He  and  His  Father  are 
one;  that  all  men  should  honor  the  Son,  even  as  they  honor  the 
Father;  and  that  He  came  down  from  heaven,  and  was,  at  the  same 
time,  in  heaven.  Among  other  testimonies  are  the  following: — 
John  1:1.  "In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with 
God,  and  the  Word  was  God.  The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with 
God."  V.  14.  "The  Word  became  flesh."  Rom.  1:3,  4.  "His  Son, 
who  was  born  of  the  seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh,  who  was 
declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power"  (N.  V.);  2>:t,  "God, 
sending  His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  for  sin." 
Gal.  4:4.  "But  when  the  fullness  of  the  time  came,  God  sent  forth 
His  Son,  born  of  a  woman."  Phil.  2:6-8.  "  Who,  being  in  the  form 
of  God,  did  not  think  it  a  thing  of  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God, 
but  emptied  Himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant,  being  made  in 
the  likeness  of  men"  (partly  N.  V.).  Col.  1:19.  "For  it  pleased 
the  Father  that  in  Him  should  all  the  fullness  dwell  " — (that  is,  all 
stated  in  vs.  15-18).  V.  2:9.  "  For  in  Him  dwelleth  all  the  fullness 
of  the  Godhead  bodily."  I.  Tim.  3:16.  "God  was  manifest  in  the 
flesh."  Heb.  2:14.  "  Forasmuch  then  as  the  children  are  partakers 
of  flesh  and  blood,  He  also  Himself  in  like  manner  took  part  of  the 
same."  V.  17.  "  Wherefore  in  all  things  it  behooved  Him  to  be 
made  like  unto  His  brethren."  From  these  and  kindred  passages, 
including  the  record  of  the  generation  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the 
birth  by  the  virgin  Mary,  of  our  Lord,  the  following  points  seem 
manifest: — i.  Until  the  fullness  of  time,  our  Lord  existed  from  eter- 
nity a  purely  Divine  nature  and  person.  2.  At  that  time,  He  was 
sent  by  the  Father,  came,  assumed  to   Himself  a  true  and  perfect 


PERSONALITY  OF  CHRIST,  165 

human  nature,  not  person,  making  such  a  union  between  it  and  the 
Divine  nature  as,  without  changing,  mixing,  or  confusing  their  dis- 
tinct essences  or  properties,  to  constitute  them  only  one  Person,  one 
no  longer  simply  Divine,  but  both  Divine  and  human,  the  God-man, 
theanthropos.  3.  This  unioa  was  effected  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
causing  Mary's  conception,  so  that  the  human  nature  never  was  a 
separate  person,  but,  from  its  germ,  existed  in  the  union;  and  it 
was  only  in  this  complex  person  that  all  the  human  faculties  and 
properties  had  their  whole  action  and  development.  The  incarna- 
tion, therefore,  was  not  the  assumption  by  the  Son  of  God  of  a 
human  person  already  existing,  which  would  have  been  merely  an 
association  of  that  person  with  Himself,  and  would  have  made  two 
persons  in  Christ,  instead  of  one;  but  it  was  the  assumption  of  a 
human  nature  in  its  incipient  existence  into  an  eternal  union  with 
Himself,  by  which  one  Person  was  constituted.  Thus,  as  far  as 
possible.  He  let  Himself  down  by  an  infinite  self-humiliation  into 
His  relation  to  mankind  in  the  form  of  a  servant.  4.  It  is  thus 
perfectly  proper  to  ascribe  the  properties,  abilities,  actions,  and 
states  of  either  of  these  two  natures  to  the  one  complex  Person 
constituted  from  them — to  say  either  that  He  was  very  God,  or  was 
very  man — was  eternal,  or  was  born — was  the  Son  of  God,  or  the 
Son  of  Man — was  the  Creator  and  Upholder  of  the  universe,  or 
was  conceived  by  the  virgin — was  infinite  in  being  and  all  natural 
attributes,  and  yet  grew  in  stature  and  wisdom,  and  lacked  knowl- 
edge of  some  things — was  the  Lord  of  glory,  and  yet  was  condemned 
and  crucified  by  the  Jews,  died,  and  was  entombed — and  that  He 
was  God  who  purchased  the  Church  with  His  own  blood,  or  man 
who  at  the  appointed  day  is  to  judge  the  world,  and  the  one 
Mediator  between  God  and  man.  The  peculiarities  of  each  nature 
are  equally  attributable  to  the  one  Person,  because  the  two  are 
combined  in  Him.  He  wept  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus,  because  a 
complete  human  nature  was  embraced  in  His  Person;  He  raised 
him  from  the  dead,  because  a  complete  Divine  one  was  embraced 
in  it;  and  the  one  was  just  diS  personal  io  Him  as  the  other.  There 
is  an  analogue  of  all  this  in  the  constitution  of  man,  which  consists 
of  two  distinct  natures,  one  material  and  the  other  mental,  neither 
of  which  is,  by  itself,  a  person.  It  is  their  vital  union  which  consti- 
tutes them  one;  and  yet,  in  it,  there  is  not  the  slightest  change  of 
the  substance  or  properties  of  either  nature,  nor  commixture  of 
them,  but  each  of  them  remains  as  perfectly  itself  and  distinct  from 
the  other,  as  if  they  had  never  been  united  in  one  person.     Nor 


l66  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAIT. 

does  any  one  find  even  a  suggestion  of  difificulty  in  ascribing  alike 
the  peculiar  properties  and  states  of  either  the  mind  or  the  body  to 
the  one  person  composed  of  them,  because  they  all  alike  belong 
to  the  one  person.  But,  while  alike  ascribed  to  the  one  person,  those 
of  either  of  the  natures  never  can  be  ascribed  to  the  other.  Each 
of  them  must  forever  retain  its  own.  The  application  is  obvious; 
and  we  here  leave  this  matter  of  the  incarnation  by  referring  to  the 
whole  preceding  Chapter  as  having  full  relation  to  it,  both  for 
silencing  objections  and  for  showing  that  the  presumption  or  prob- 
ability is  entirely  in  its  favor.* 

§  94.    DESIGN  TO  BE  ACCOMPLISHED  BY  THE  INCARNATION. 

What  ends  was  the  incarnation  designed  to  accomplish?  In 
general,  God's  purpose  in  it,  as  it  related  to  mankind,  was,  that,  in 
and  through  the  Divine-Human  Person  thus  formed,  He  might  enter 
into  such  relations  to  them,  that  He  could  manifest  Himself  to  them 
in  His  true  nature  and  character  by  developing  and  displaying  be- 
fore and  towards  them,  in  ways  adapted  to  impress  and  affect  them 
to  the  highest  degree,  His  power  over  them  and  nature  personally 
exerted  in  beneficence  to  them;  His  knowledge  of  and  wisdom  re- 
specting them;  His  moral  government  over  and  claims  upon  them; 
His  inflexible  justice,  immaculate  righteousness,  and  inviolate  verac- 
ity, all  in  pertect  harmony  with  His  yearning  pity  for,  and  merciful 
love  and  grace  towards  them,  despite  all  their  sin  and  guilt.  The 
teachings  of  the  incarnate  Son,  His  miracles.  His  constant  labors 
for  the  good  of  others,  His  all-perfect  character  and  example.  His 
visible  atonement  by  His  sufferings  and  death  of  crucifixion  for  the 
world.  His  lying  in  the  tomb,  His  resurrection  and  ascension  to 
heaven.  His  securing  and  sending  the  Holy  Spirit  to  influence  and 
renovate  men,  His  institution  of  the  Church,  His  Mediatorial  reign 
in  heaven,  and  all  His  relations  to  the  redeemed,  and  everlastingly 
modified  relations  to  the  whole  universe  forever  depended  on  the 
fact  of  His  becoming  so;  and,  if  He  had  not,  there  could  have  been 
no  salvation  for  any  of  our  race.  God's  purpose,  d-i-  it  related  to 
other  intelligent  creatures,  was,  first,  as  it  respected  good  ones,  that 
they  might  see,  in  the  amazing  manifestion  towards  mankind  in  and 
through  the  incarnation  as  indicated,  such  a  display  of  His  charac- 
ter and  perfections,  exceeding  all  they  ever  before  saw  or  could  see 
of  them,  as  to  inspire  correspondingly  augmented  love  and  loyalty 

(*)  See  on  iiicaniation  the  places  treating  of  it  in  Sliedd's  Hist,  of  Doctrines, 
Hagenback's  Hist,  of  Doctrines,  Hooket's  Eccl.  Polity,  Pearson  oa  the  Creed,  etc. 


IF  MAN  HAD  NOT  SINNED.  167 

to  Him  in  them,  and  to  reconcile  them  to  the  exaltation  of  the  re- 
deemed of  men  to  relations  and  glories  in  heaven  vastly  excelling 
their  own;  and,  secondly,  as  it  respected  bad  ones,  that,  by  the  same 
display,  the  righteousness  of  His  own  character  and  His  govern- 
ment, in  His  administration  of  retributive  justice  upon  them,  might 
be  absolutely  vindicated  even  to  themselves.  God's  purpose,  as  it 
respects  Himself,  was  to  gratify  His  infinitely  benevolent  and  merci- 
ful heart  by  preventing  the  endless  wickedness  and  misery,  and 
securing  the  endless  holiness  and  blessedness,  of  all  of  mankind 
who  could  be  reclaimed  and  saved  by  means  of  the  measure;  to 
augment  immeasurably  the  bkssedness  and  glory  of  all  holy  beings 
in  the  universe  that  shall  exist  to  endless  ages;  and  to  develop  His 
intrinsic  glory  and  pour  its  infinite  splendor  forever  over  His  intel- 
ligent universe.  This  general  statement  will  be  considered  more 
fully  before  we  close  this  Chapter. 

§  95.    NO    GROUND   TO    THINK    THE     INCARNATION    WOULD    HAVE    BEEN 
MADE,  IF  MAN  HAD  NOT  SINNED. 

We  see  no  ground  for  the  assumption  or  supposition  of  a  few 
speculatists,  that  the  incarnation  would  have  been  made,  if  men  had 
never  sinned.  The  Scriptural  teachings  give  it  no  countenance,  but 
are  directly  to  the  contrary.*  But  without  it  no  atonement  could 
have  been  made  for  the  sins  of  mankind;  and,  since,  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  no  creature,  however  exalted,  no  other  being  than  God, 
could  achieve  this  measure,  so,  as  we  have  seen,  He  could,  only 
because  He  is  a  Trinity  of  Persons  in  one  nature.  Let  us  here 
notice  this  point  a  little  further.  The  nature  or  essence  of  God  is, 
in  itself,  eternally  inoperative.  It  is  only  the  Persons  in  it  that  act; 
and,  in  the  Divine  operations,  especially  in  the  great  measure  of 
redemption,  each  of  them  does  His  own  part  in  distinction  from 
each  of  the  others  and  His  part.  They  could  not,  though  all  equal, 
change  places  or  parts  in  either  Person  or  action.  From  what  is 
revealed,  it  is  plain,  that  it  would  not  have  been  possible  for  either 
the  Father  or  the  Holy  Spirit  to  have  acted  the  part,  which  the  Son 
did,  as  related  to  and  connected  with  the  part  acted  by  each  of  them. 
It  would  have  been  equally  so  for  the  Son  or  Spirit  to  have  acted  the 
part  of  the  Father,  or  for  the  Father  or  the  Son  to  have  acted  that 
of  the  Spirit;  and  were  there  but  one  Person  in  the  essence  of  God, 
He  could,  by  no  possibility,  act  all  or  any  of  the  parts  ascribed  to 


(*)  John  3:16,   17;  John  4:9,  10;  Mat.    i8:n;  Luke  19:10;  fleb.  2:9  iS,  and 
many  other  places. 


I68  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

the  three,  as  they  relate  to  and  connect  with  each  other.  As  to  the 
three  impersonal  subsistences  or  Swedenborg's  nonsensical  Trinity 
of  "  Essentials  "  (which  are  not  so),  there  is  no  conceivable  place 
or  use  for  them;  nor  is  there,  if  the  Scriptures  are  true,  for  a  uni- 
personal  God.  Nor  is  the  distinction  between  the  three  Persons  and 
their  parts,  just  shown,  a  matter  of  mere  grammar,  language,  repre- 
sentation, or  personation,  but  one  of  the  eternal  mode  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  and  of  His  corresponding  counsel  to  achieve  human 
redemption.  Hence,  as  man  could  not  be  saved  without  an  atone- 
ment, the  Scriptures  show  that  the  second  Person  of  the  three  was 
the  one  who  viust  make  it,  and  that,  to  make  it.  He  must  become 
incarnate,  the  God-man,  as  He  did.*  As  the  passages  referred  to 
positively  teach  that  it  was  mainly  in  order  to  make  an  atonement 
that  He  became  incarnate,  this  consummate  fact  must  be  under- 
stood as  implied  in  every  passage  which  says  God  sent  or  He  gave 
His  Son  to  effect  the  salvation  of  men,  because  He  sent  and  gave 
Him  only  in  the  way  of  the  incarnation;  and  every  passage  which 
asserts  that  we  have  been  bought,  ransomed,  redeemed,  purchased, 
forgiven,  justified,  or  saved  by  His  blood,  His  death,  His  laying 
down  or  giving  His  life.  Himself,  His  bearing  our  sins  in  His  own 
body,  His  being  made  an  offering,  a  sacrifice,  a  curse,  or  sin.  His 
being  obedient  unto  death,  His  being  lifted  up,  His  having  suffered. 
His  being  a  propitiation,  or  any  similar,  implies  that  it  is  true  of 
Him,  because  He  became  incarnate,  since  otherwise  nothing  of  the 
kind  would  have  been  possible;  and  the  Scriptures  show  that  a  fun- 
damental reason  for  His  incarnation  was  that  He  might  make  the 
atonement. 

§  96.    NECESSITY  OF  THE  INCARNATION  IN  ORDER  TO    THE  ATONEMENT. 

While  the  maker  of  the  atonement  must  be  God,  the  second 
Person  of  the  Godhead,  as  we  have  seen.  He  as  such  alone  could 
not  make  it  from  lack  of  qualifying  nature  and  relations.  Mankind 
were  all  sinners,  all  liable  to  the  deserved  and  just  penalty  of  the 
law,  and  could  in  no  way  retrieve  themselves,  or  be  retrieved  by 
other  creatures,  from  it.  If  retrievable  at  all,  God  only  can  do  it — 
can  execute  any  of  the  necessary  conditions  and  provisions.  That 
is.  He  only  can  do  and  provide  all  requisite  to  retrieve  them  con- 
sistently with  the  nature  and  demands  of  the  changeless  law  and  its 

(•")  Mat.  20:28;  Mark  io;4,  5;  Luke  24:26,  27,  44-47;  John  3:14-16;  10:17, 
18;  12:23-27;  Acts  3:18;  17:2,  3;  26:22,  23;  Rom.  3:24-26;  Gal.  4:4,  5;  Phil.  2:6- 
8;  I.  Thn.  2:3-6;  Heb.  2:9  17;  8:3;  9:10-15,  24-28;  10:4-14;  I.  Pet.  i:i8  21;  I. 
John  4:9,  10;  Rev.  13:8. 


ANGELS  LACKING  A  RACE-CONSTITUTION.  169 

justice,  of  moral  government,  of  the  universal  moral  system 
grounded  in  His  own  and  all  other  moral  natures,  and  with 
their  own  personal  and  social  necessity  of  complying  with  the 
moral  conditions  of  their  retrieval.  But,  while  He  must  be  the 
author  and  executor  of  any  measure  for  human  salvation.  He 
must  adapt  it  entirely  to  the  nature  of  the  case.  Men,  having 
sinned,  must  themselves  suffer  the  deserved  penalty,  if  dealt  with  in 
their  own  persons.  If  one  of  such  qualifications  of  person,  char- 
acter, and  relations  to  them  and  to  God,  that  He  can  by  God's 
arrangement  be  their  representative,  and  suffer  as  a  substitute  for 
them  all  a  full  equivalent,  in  effect,  for  the  sufferings  deserved  by 
them  all,  so  that,  by  fulfilling  the  necessary  ethical  conditions,  they 
may  be  forgiven  and  saved.  He  must,  whatever  else  He  is,  be  of 
their  race,  bone  of  their  bone  and  flesh  of  their  flesh,  a  man.  The 
reason  for  this  necessity  is  the  race-constitution  of  mankind:  and 
we  invite  some  attention  to  it. 

§  97.    ANGELS    LACKING  A  RACE-CONSTITUTION,  AND    DIFFERENCES 
BETWEEN  ADAM'S  ACTIONS  AND    THEIRS. 

The  angels  are  not  a  race.  They  have  neither  a  race-consti- 
tution, nor  the  natural  affections,  affinities,  susceptibilities,  sym- 
pathies, interdependencies,  and  mutual  liabilities  involved  in  a  race, 
each  of  them  having  been  created  separately.  They  are  an  order 
of  beings  lacking  natural  connection,  each  of  them  acting,  and 
standing  or  falling,  without  entailing  any  moral  bias  upon  any  other 
to  either  rectitude  or  sin.  They  can  affect  each  other  only  by  direct 
effort  or  influence,  and  hence  could  not  fall  as  an  order  by  the  action 
of  any  one  or  more  of  them  infecting  their  nature,  but  only  individ- 
ually by  each  one's  own  will.  Consequently,  while  some  of  them 
thus  fell,  others  "kept  their  first  estate,"  as  vastly  the  greatest  por- 
tion of  them  doubtless  have,  those  only,  who  of  themselves  sinned, 
being  "reserved  in  everlasting  chains  under  darkness  unto  the  judg- 
ment of  the  great  day."  But  the  case  of  mankind  is  very  different. 
By  their  race-constitution,  originated  by  the  creation  of  the  first 
pair,  they  were  to  come  into  existence  as  a  race;  and  Adam  was  the 
natural  head  of  it  all.  He  necessarily  so  represented  them  in  moral 
relation  and  action,  that  it  depended  on  his  obedience  or  disobe- 
dience whether  their  common  nature  should  be  transmitted  from  him 
in  archetypal  integrity,  or  damaged,  disordered,  vitiated.  If  in  the 
former  state,  they  would,  under  God's  favor  and  conserving  influence 
secured  by  his  obedience,  all  be  like  him  in  character,  in  receiving 


I70  GOD,   CHRIST,  KEDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

the  fruits  and  rewards  of  disobedience,  and  in  everlasting  destiny. 
If  in  the  latter  state,  they  would  all  follow  him  in  apostasy,  falling 
in  him  under  the  law  of  sin,  and  incurring  its  natural  consequences 
and  retributive  liabilities.  While  Adam  was  a  responsible  person 
as  every  man  is,  his  nature  was  in  reality  no  more  his  than  that  of 
each  of  his  posterity  to  the  last.  It  was  the  nature  of  mankind  in 
germ;  and,  because  the  whole  multitude  of  his  posterity  was  thus 
contained  in  his  race-constitution,  and  was  to  be  distributed  from  it 
by  natural  propagation,  he  necessarily  had  the  whole  so  in  his  keep- 
ing, that,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  and  of  course  by  God's  design, 
his  trial-action  was  pote7itially  that  of  the  entire  race,  and  must 
affect  it  throughout,  just  as  it  did  the  whole,  when  he  did  the  act, 
before  its  distribution  began.  That  is,  the  effects  of  that  act,  phys- 
ical, and  moral  in  tendency,  were  permanent  in  the  total  nature  and 
race,  so  that  his  act  was  potentially  that  of  total  humanity,  and  its 
effects,  not  only  on  the  common  nature,  but  on  their  moral  relations 
to  God,  were  universal.  If  he  had  obeyed,  the  act  would  have  been 
as  if  that  of  each  of  them,  and  each  of  them  would  have  had  its 
effects.  These  consequences  would  have  been  the  same  whether  he 
knew  it  or  not,  though  we  suppose  he  did  and  acted  with  this 
knowledge.  The  only  covenant  between  God  and  Adam  in  the  case, 
of  which  we  have  knowledge;  was  that  implied  in  every  command 
or  prohibition,  that,  if  obedient,  he  should  receive  the  reward  of 
life,  but,  if  not,  the  punishment  of  death,  though  he  could  have  only 
a  very  meager  conception  of  the  meaning  of  the  terms.  But  we 
should  distinctly  note,  that,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  race-consti- 
tution and  relations,  it  was  impossible,  whether  Adam  should  stand 
or  fall,  that  a  single  one  of  his  descendants,  our  Lord  Jesus  excepted, 
should  ever  have  a  legal  probation  for  himself,  unless  he  had  it 
potentially  in  Adam,  and  that  Adam  necessarily  did  go  through  one, 
which  in  effect  was  for  every  one  of  them,  and  was  just  as  if  each 
was  acting  in  and  with  him. 

§  98.    MANKIND    THE    CONSUMMATE     ORDER    OF    RATIONAL    CREATURES. 

As  this  relation  of  Adam  and  his  trial-action  to  his  posterity 
sprung  from  his  race-constitution,  there  was  nothing  arbitrary  or 
fictitious  in  it;  and  the  whole  case  is  susceptible  of  satisfactory 
explanation  and  vindication.  There  is  abundant  evidence  in  Scrip- 
ture, that  the  human  race  was  constituted  to  be  the  consummate 
order  of  created  beings  in  the  universe;  and  that  the  race-consti- 
tution was  necessary  to  their  being  such.     We  think  that,  without 


MANKIND  RATIONAL  CREATURES.  171 

this  race,  creation  would  have  been  defective  in  its  supreme  design, 
which  all  centered  in  the  existence,  holiness,  blessedness,  and  glory 
of  the  intelligent  natures  it  should  contain  and  in  God's  pleasure  and 
glory  from  them — -that  the  keystone  of  its  eternal  arch,  according 
to  its  whole  plan,  would  have  been  wanting.  This  gives  the  suffic- 
ient reason  why,  notwithstanding  God's  perfect  knowledge  of  the 
tremendous  liability  involved  in  the  existence  of  such  a  race,  and 
of  the  Fall  and  the  appalling  disaster  it  brought  on  it  all  in  time, 
and,  through  their  own  consenting  bad  agency,  on  a  vast  proportion 
of  them  forever,  He  saw  it  demanded  on  the  whole  by  absolute 
benevolence,  and  therefore  wisest  and  best,  that  He  should  create 
man  so  constituted,  although  He  also  foresaw  the  stupendous  sacri- 
fice and  cost  their  creation  would  bring  upon  Himself.  The  Scrip- 
tures teach  that  there  are  different  orders  or  grades  of  angels,  all 
standing  closely  related  in  the  way  of  system  and  order — cherubim, 
seraphim,  thrones,  principalities,  and  powers.  What'  was  the 
designed  relation  of  mankind  to  them  and  to  all  other  intelligent 
creatures,  whether  existing  or  to  exist? — one  non-essential,  as  part 
of  a  system? — one  entirely  subordinate,  although  filling  a  designed 
place  in  a  system? — or  one  consummately  essential  to  the  com- 
pletion and  ever-unfolding  realization  of  God's  archetypal  idea  or 
plan  embodied  in  the  total  creation? — and  even  to  the  conservation 
of  other  orders  or  races  of  moral  beings,  which  may  yet  be  created 
at  successive  epochs  and  in  different  worlds  as  God  may  fit  them 
for  occupation? 

The  information  of  Scripture  alone  can  furnish  or  indicate  a 
solution  to  these  inquiries.  Its  first  is  in  Gen.  1:26,  27.  When  God 
had  completed  the  creation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  of  all 
the  inferior  creatures,  He  made  a  solemn  pause,  as  if  having  come 
to  the  great  consummating,  crowning  work,  for  which  all  else  had 
been  done,  and  He  must  use  special  counsel  concerning  it,  "where- 
as," as  noted  by  one,  "always  before  He  had  immediately  uttered 
the  creative  word,"  which  "  had  regard  simply  to  the  thing  itself 
which  was  summoned  into  being,  or  to  some  preceding  object  phys- 
ically connected  with  the  new  creature."  The  being  now  to  be  cre- 
ated is  to  be  directly  related  to  the  Creator  Himself,  and  to  be  ruler 
of  the  earth  and  all  other  creatures.  God  therefore  says — "Let  us 
(or  We  will)  make  man  in  our  image,  after  our  likeness."  "So  God 
created  man  in  His  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  He 
him;  male  and  female  created  He  them."  The  us  or  tve  and  our  in 
verse  26  is  not  the  plural  of  majesty,  but  indicates  the  plurality  of 


172  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAIST. 

Persons  in  the  Godhead,  afterwards  clearly  revealed,  of  whom  the 
second  was  specially  the  Creator.  He,  in  II.  Cor.  4:4,  is  called  "the 
image  of  God,"  and,  in  Col.  1:15,  "the  image  of  the  invisible  God." 
The  Greek  word,  rendered  image  in  these  places,  while  indicating 
the  Son  as  the  exact  manifestation  of  God,  implies  that  He  is  such, 
because,  in  nature,  attributes,  and  character.  He  is  the  essential, 
complete  resemblance  of  God,  and  exactly  represents  Him.  The 
Hebrew  word,  rendered  image  va.  Q^n.  1:26,27,  corresponds  in  its 
general  meaning,  although,  as  used  of  man,  its  sense  is  incompar- 
ably less  full.  It  indicates  the  type,  style,  ox  kind  oi  man's  nature, 
what  it  intrinsically  and  really  is  in  ki'id,  and  not  merely  apparently, 
so  that  it  is  homogeneous  to  God's,  of  the  same  kind,  and  therefore 
like  His,  or  after  His  likeness.  It  includes  that  his  nature  would  be 
so  perfect  that  he  would  at  once  form  a  character  like  God's.  Won- 
drous record!  If  it  gives  the  most  aggrandizing  and  august  concep- 
tion of  human  nature  which  ever  entered  the  world.  This  image 
was  in  man's  spiritual  part,  not  formed  out  of  pre-existing  matter 
as  his  body  was,  but  directly  created;  and  it  belongs  to  the  nature 
of  the  case  that  it  was  created  immortal.  How  infinitely  far  from 
God's  image  and  likeness — what  a  parody  and  mockery  of  them, 
would  it  have  been,  if  without  immortality!  It  is  an  insufferable 
imposture  of  words,  to  tell  us  we  are  created  in  the  image  and  after 
the  likeness  of  God  who  is  intrinsically  immortal,  if  we  are  not! 
There  is  not  a  valid  principle,  ground,  or  reason  why  any  should 
even  suppose  this  essential  part  of  man,  not  "formed  from  the  dust 
of  the  ground,"  as  His  body  was,  but  directly  created  and  breathed 
into  it  by  the  Creator  to  constitue  His  image  and  likeness,  could 
possibly  be  mortal,  like  his  body — especially  there  is  not,  when  we 
are  positively  told  by  the  Spirit  of  inspiration  in  Eccl.  12:7,  refer- 
ring both  to  man's  original  creation  and  the  doom  of  bodily  death 
upon  him,  that,  at  death  "the  dust  returns  to  the  earth  as  it  was,  and 
the  spirit  shall  return  unto  God  who  gave  it" — that  is,  created  and 
breathed  it  into  the  body;  and  when,  in  Zech.  12:1  and  Is.  42:5,  He 
represents  His  doing  this  as  the  climax  of  all  His  works  of  creation. 
It  was  Paul's  perfect  knowledge  of  this  sublime  origin  and  nature  of 
man  which  led  him,  in  addressing  the  Athenians  in  the  Areopagus, 
to  quote  an  expression  from  the  Greek  poet  Aratus,  Cleanthes,  and 
others  of  them  having  uttered  substantially  the  same,  the  sense  of 
which  is,  that  "we  are  all  of  the  race  of  God,"  to  approve  it,  and 
to  argue  from  it — "As,  therefore,  we  are  the  race,  or  offspring,  of 
God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  Godhead  is  like  unto  gold,  or 


A  BRIEF  THEODOCY.  1 73 

silver,  or  stone,  graven  by  art  and  man's  device,"*  Acts  17:28,  29. 
Thus  was  Adam,  as  it  were,  an  essential  miniature  of  God,  and,  in 
him  each  one  of  his  posterity;  for,  although  this  image  was  lost  as 
it  respects  character,  both  Scripture  and  the  nature  of  the  case 
show,  that,  as  far  as  essential  nature  goes,  it  was  not  and  never  can 
be  lost,  though  it  has  been  fearfully  perverted.  It  could  only  be 
lost  with  being.  We  add  that,  as  the  race-constitution  does  not 
belong  to  the  angels,  so  they  are  nowhere  said  to  have  been  created 
in  the  image  and  after  the  likeness  of  God,  which  seems  to  indicate 
some  specific  relation  between  them  and  Him.  "So  God  created 
him  in  His  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  He  him;  male 
and  female  created  He  them."f  Now,  considering  this  account  of 
the  creation  of  man  as  the  close  and  climax  of  the  works  of  the  six 
days,  we  are  constrained  to  believe  that  it  sets  him  higher  in  intrinsic 
nature,  relationship  to  God,  and  importance  to  the  rational  universe 
than  any  other  order  of  created  intelligences — especially  so,  when 
viewed  in  connection  with  other  revelations  concerning  him. 

Of  these,  we  refer  to  the  following  passages  which  plainly  teach, 
either  directly  or  by  necessary  implication,  that,  not  only  was  God's 
Eternal  Son  to  be  inserted  into  our  race  by  the  incarnation,  but,  by 
this  identification  with  it,  both  He  and  it,  or  the  saved  of  it,  the 
real  Church,  would  stand  related  to  all  other  moral  natures,  exist- 
ing and  to  exist  in  ever-augmenting  multitudes  through  the  ages  of 
ages,  in  a  way  vitally  essential  probably  to  the  very  creation,  or  to 
the  conservation,  if  created,  of  all  future  orders,  and  certainly  to  the 
highest  and  incomparably  greater  good  of  all,  except  the  lost  of 
angels  and  of  men.|  From  these  passages,  to  which  others  might 
be  added,  we  deduce  the  following  as  probably  main  parts  of  God's 
plan  and  ends  in  creation. 

§  99.    CHIEF    PARTS    AND    ENDS   OF   GOD'S   PLAN  OF  CREATION — A   BRIEF 

THEODOCY. 

I.  God  had  an  eternal,  all-embracing  plan  of  the  universe  of 
worlds  and  of  all  orders  of  creatures  to  exist  upon  them  before 
*' the  beginning"  of  creation,  and  all  His  creative  acts  have  been 
done  according  to  that  plan.  It  embraced  all  His  own  courses, 
measures,  and  acts  from  the  beginning  onward  forever  in  reference 

(*)  Cicero  De  Legibus,  Lib.  I.,  Cliap.  7,  8,  g§  22-27. 

(f)  Gen.  1:27;  5:1,  2;  Mai.  2:15. 

(X)  Rom.  8:28,  29;  I.  Cor.  3:22,  23;  15:24-28;  Eph,  1:4-10,  18-23;  3:9-11; 
Phil.  2:9-11;  Col.  1:15-20;  II.  Tim.  1:9;  Heb.  1:2-14;  2:5-18;  I.  Pet.  3:22;  Rev. 
5:8-14;  7:9-12;  Eph.  5:23-32;  Rev.  19:7-9;  21:2,  9. 


174  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN". 

to  each  material  part,  each  order  of  creatures,  and  each  individual 
of  each  order  to  exist  in  it  in  all  coming  ages.  No  jot  or  tittle  of 
the  whole  has  been  omitted  from  it,  nor  has  one  been  added  to  it. 

2.  This  plan  was  certainly  t]ie  best  possible,  probably  the  only 
one  possible  for  an  eternal  universe,  to  secure  the  great  e?tdiox  which 
His  infinite  goodness  impelled  Him  to  devise  it,  and  to  create 
according  to  it.  This  end  was  His  own  pleasure  and  glory  from  the 
existence  of  all  the  moral  beings  He  would  ever  create,  upon  whom 
He  could  forever  pour  the  emanations  of  His  fullness  to  the  meas- 
ure of  their  capacity  to  receive  them,  and  from  whom  He  could 
receive  everlasting  reciprocations  of  trust,  love,  gratitude,  glory, 
praise,  blessing,  and  all  devotion  in  endless  augmentation;  and  it 
would  embrace  all  their  good. 

3.  In  this  plan,  the  material  parts  and  all  the  irrational  crea- 
tures, with  all  their  qualities  and  adaptations,  were  to  be  supremely 
for  the  service  and  benefit  of  the  intelligent,  moral  beings  destined 
to  use  them,  just  as  houses  with  all  their  adaptations  are  planned 
and  built  for  their  designed  occupants;  so  that  the  end  oi  the  whole 
material  and  sentient  creation  was  to  serve  and  benefit  moral  natures, 
and  thus  manifest  God's  goodness  to  and  care  for  them. 

4.  Only  two  different  orders  of  moral  beings,  angels,  the  first 
created,  and  mankind,  are  mentioned  in  Scripture.  Of  these,  men 
occupy  the  earth,  angels  heaven,  perhaps  the  only  two  worlds  yet  fitted 
for  occupation  by  intelligent  beings  when  these  were  created.  But 
the  fact  that  neither  the  material,  nor  the  irrational  animal,  creation 
can  be  an  end  in  itself,  so  that  we  cannot  suppose  any  material 
world  created  without  an  end  beyond  itself,  or  merely  for  star-show, 
supplies  the  strongest  probable  evidence,  amounting  to  even  a  moral 
certainty,  that  all  the  planets  in  space  are  designed  to  be,  and  yet 
will  be,  inhabited  by  rational  beings — a  moral  certainty,  because 
there  is  no  imaginable  valid  reason  to  the  contrary.  The  fact  that 
He  has  created  angels  and  men,  despite  His  absolute  foreknowledge 
of  all  that  the  lapse  of  so  many  of  the  former  and  of  all  the  latter 
would  cost  Him,  along  with  the  other  fact  that  He  has  created  all 
the  existing  worlds,  is  strong  presumptive  evidence  that  He  will 
continue  to  make  the  additions  of  moral  beings  to  occupy  them,  which 
we  have  indicated;  for  the  creation  of  the  two  orders  mentioned 
and  of  worlds  for  ihem,  with  such  cost  to  Himself  involved,  certainly 
shows  that  He  has  an  infinite  urgency  of  nature  or  heart  to  origi- 
nate such  beings,  and  to  communicate  to  them  the  fullness  of  His 
love  and  blessing. 


GENERAL  PLAN  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.  175 

§  100.    WHAT,  IN   SUBSTANCE,  THE    GENERAL   PLAN    OF  THE    UNIVERSE, 
MATERIAL  AND  VITAL,  MANIFESTLY  IS. 

5.  This  eternal  plan  of  the  universe  was  not  that  it  was  to  be 
merely  an  aggregate  of  separate,  unrelated  worlds,  orders  of  beings, 
and  single  creatures,  like  grains  of  sand  in  a  heap,  but  an  organic 
unity,  like  a  tree,  in  which  every  world,  order  of  beings,  and  each  of 
moral  sort  should  be  correlated  to  others  and  the  whole  by  ties  of 
nature  and  of  mutualities  of  influence,  services,  supports,  and  de- 
pendencies, so  that  not  one  of  them  could  be  omitted,  or  essentially 
different  in  constitution  and  relations  from  the  archetypal  design, 
without  damage  to  the  whole,  proportional  to  the  intrinsic  import- 
ance of  the  omitted   object.     The  material  universe  is   to  a  great 
extent  the  symbol  of  the  spiritual.     All  the  worlds  which  compose 
it  are  so  correlated  by  the  mutualities  of  gravitation,  forces,  motion, 
light,  electricity,  and  probably  other  ties,  that  each   of  them,  and 
each  sub-system  of  them  is  dependent  on  each  and  all  of  the  others 
in  some  measure  for  being  and  continuing  what  it  is,  for  the  regu- 
larity and  order  of  its  revolutions,  and  for  its  adaptations  and  capa- 
bilities  to   be    the   home   of  destined   rational    occupants.      If    a 
single  system,  or  even  world,  constituted  just  as  it  is,  had   been 
omitted  from  the  universe,  neither  would  the  whole  nor  any  part  of 
it  have  been  as  perfect  as  it  is;  and  the  best  possible  material  crea- 
tion, which  we  are  bound  to  assume  the  actual  one  to  be,  could  not 
have  existed.     In  like  manner,  God's  plan  required  that  every  order 
and  individual  of  the  intelligent  universe,  ever  to  exist,  should  be 
constituted  in  all  respects,  and  correlated  in  nature  to  every  other 
one,  precisely  as  it  is  or  will  be;  so  that  to  omit  a  single  order  or 
individual  of  the  whole  would  be  to  omit  a  constituent  part  of  the 
best  possibly  constituted   whole,  and   thus   to  prevent  the  greatest 
possible  pleasure  and  glory  to  God  from  His  intelligent  creatures, 
and  the  equally  great  well-being,  blessedness,  and  glory  to  them. 
Considering  the  fact  that  He  absolutely  foreknew,  when  He  adopted 
the  plan,  that  such  a  part  of   the  angels  would  lapse  and  perish, 
and  that,  through  them,  mankind  would  also  lapse,  and  would  all 
perish,  unless    retrieved   by    Himself  in    the   way    He   saw   would 
be  necessary,  and  which  must  be  included  in  the  plan;    and  con- 
sidering  that,    despite    all    this    foreknowledge.    He    created   both 
the  orders  of  beings,  and   that,  in  order  to  save  as  many  of   man- 
kind as   possible,  He  has  actually  made   the  stupendous  sacrifice 
of    the    redemptive    measure,    the    necessary    conclusion    is,    that 
neither  of    these   two    orders  of    angels    and    men,   nor    an   indi- 


176  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN". 

vidual  of  them,  could  be  omitted  from  the  plan  by  His  infinite 
goodness  and  wisdom,  without  impairing  its  character — that  both 
the  orders,  and  every  individual  in  them,  of  whatever  foreknown 
history,  must  be  created  precisely  as  they  have  been.  If  asked  why 
He  created  the  angels  that  fell,  when  He  perfectly  foreknew  their 
apostasy  and  loss,  their  desperate  hostility  to  Himself  and  all  good, 
and  their  success  in  effecting  the  fall  and  ruin  of  man,  the  only 
answer  possible  for  us  must  be,  simply  because  He  saw  they  could 
not  be  omitted  without  violation  of  the  incomparably  best  plan,  if 
not  the  only  one  better  than  none,  which  might  involve  a  decision 
to  create  no  universe  at  all.  We  believe  the  question  of  His  creat- 
ing these  reprobate  angels,  foreknowing  that  they  would  be  such, 
was  simply  whether  He  should  create  a  tiniverse  with  them  in  it,  or 
none  at  all.  The  alternative  was — A  universe  with  them  iji  it,  or  the 
eternal  solitude  of  infinite  space  with  Himself  alone  in  it!  The  answer 
is  the  same  to  the  question,  why  He  created  man  with  the  precise 
constitution  of  body  and  mind  with  which  He  did,  when  He  per- 
fectly foreknew  the  total  disaster  of  his  lapse,  and  all  the  loss  of 
souls  which  would  result,  as  well  as  His  own  infinite  sacrifice  to  save 
such  of  them  as  He  foreknew  He  could — especially,  why  He  created 
any  of  them  who  He  foreknew  would  be  lost,  notwithstanding  His 
own  designed  sacrifice  in  time  to  save  all  possible  of  the  race.  The 
alternative  was — Create  the  race  and  each  person  of  it  constituted 
precisely  as  they  are,  with  all  evils  foreseen,  and  with  them  the 
material  universe  to  be  occupied  by  new  and  ever-augmenting  races 
or  orders  of  moral  beings,  secured  (we  believe)  from  lapse  and  ruin 
and  eternally  blessed  in  consequence  of  the  involved  redemptive 
measure  and  its  results,  or  not  create  this  race,  nor  any  other  moral 
beings,  creatures  or  worlds.  If  not  thus  absolute,  it  must  have  been 
— Create  them,  with  all  the  evils  foreseen,  or  create  a  universe  of 
worlds  tenanted  by  only  non-moral  creatures,  so  that  neither  in  the 
worlds  nor  the  creatures  shall  there  be  one  that  is  an  end  in  itself, 
and  therefore  of  any  intrinsic  value.  None  would  then  be  lost,  be- 
cause there  would  be  none  to  be  lost !  The  universal  organic  plan 
included  not  only  all  orders  of  created  moral  beings,  but  every  indi- 
vidual of  every  order.  Not  only  Gabriel  and  Michael  and  every 
chief  loyal  angel,  and  every  subordinate  one,  but  Satan  and  each 
follower  of  his  apostasy,  from  highest  to  lowest,  were  as  beings  in 
the  mighty  plan;  and  not  only  Adam  in  special,  but  every  one  of 
his  race,  to  the  last  born,  of  whatever  condition  was  in  it,  tied  up  in 
the  nexus  of  generations  and  all  kinds    of  natural  relationships. 


GENERAL  PLAN  OF  TILE  UNLVERSE.  177 

Even  infants,  dying  such,  are  thus  interwoven  with  the  race,  and  so 
with  the  vast  organic  whole,  by  nature,  by  their  influence  on  parents, 
and  by  the  interest  in  them  of  parents,  of  all  kindred,  of  angels,  and 
of  Christ.  Such,  we  believe,  is  the  true  doctrine  of  the  plan  of  the 
universe;  and  we  see  not  how  any  intelligent  theist  can  doubt  it, 
without  also  doubting  the  infinite  goodness,  power,  wisdom,  and 
prescience  of  God,  and  disregarding  all  the  myriads  of  analogies  in 
the  constitutions  of  matter  and  mind  which  demonstrate  that  noth- 
ing exists  insulated  from  other  things,  and  that  all  individual  exist- 
ences are  correlated  by  Divinely  constituted  ties,  and  "are  but 
parts  of  one  stupenduous  whole  "—that,  amidst  all  individualities 
and  distinctions,  there  are  uniting  bonds,  by  which  all  beings  and 
things  are  combined  in  different  ways  and  relations,  graded  up  from 
lowest  and  most  limited,  as  if  from  terrace  to  terrace,  to  the  con- 
summate, all-embracing,  organic  whole  of  the  universe.  This 
whole,  constituted  throughout  just  as  it  is,  its  non-vital  material 
parts  palpably  for  the  vital,  and  both  the  non-vital  and  the  irra- 
tional vital  for  the  rational,  and  being  thus  permeated  all  through, 
as  a  body  is  with  its  venous  system,  and  stamped  all  over,  as  a 
printed  sheet  is  with  letters,  words,  and  sentences,  with  palpabilities 
of  plan,  design,  adaptation,  provision,  subserviency  of  all  lower  to 
higher  things,  final  causes,  and  systems,  was  either  the  only  one 
possible  to  be  planned  in  harmony  with  infinite  goodness  and  wis- 
dom, connected  with  a  foresight  of  the  results  of  any  plan, 
which  mainly  relates  to  free  moral  beings  and  their  conservation 
from  universal  wreck  and  ruin,  or  at  least  so  nearly  so  that  the 
proportion  conserved  shall  so  overpoise  that  loss  as  to  make  it 
benevolent  to  adopt  it,  or  it  was,  as  a  whole,  incomparably  the 
best  possible.  The  fact  that  God  adopted  that  of  the  existing 
universe  proves  that  it  was  the  best  possible,  as  He  would  not 
adopt  any  other;  and  that  it  was  incomparably  the  best  possible  is 
])roved  by  the  fact  that  He  adopted  it,  despite  His  absolute  fore- 
sight of  all  the  grief,  self-denial,  and  self-sacrifice  it  would  cost 
Him,  as  He  certainly  would  not  have  done  so  at  such  infinite 
cost  to  Himself,  if  any  other  would  have  served  in  any  comparable 
degree.  But  we  believe  that  the  fact  that  He  adopted  it  at  such 
cost  to  Himself  proves  that  it  \vas  really  the  only  plan  possible  with- 
out the  loss  of  all  tlie  moral  beings  He  might  create,  or  of  so  vast  a 
majority  of  them  that  it  would  be  better  to  create  none  at  all.  It 
seems  to  us  that  this  doctrine  of  the  plan  of  creation  sweeps  away  all 
all  obiections  which  have  been  raised  to  God's  honor  and  justice  in 


178  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  FLAN: 

creating  our  race  as  He  did,  despite  all  the  lapse  and  loss  which  He 
knew  would  result. 

§  lOI.    HOW  OUR  RACE  IS  DISTINGUISHED  FROM  THE  ANGELS,  AND  THUS 
THE  KEYSTONE  ORDER  OF  INTELLIGENT  BEINGS. 

6.  In  this  all-embracing  plan,  mankind  are  distinguished  from 
the  angels  by  being  a  race,  and  constituted  of  spirit  and  matter;  by- 
capabilities  of  development,  improvement,  and  glorification,  per- 
haps endless,  and  probably  excelling  those  of  any  other  order,  fit- 
ting them  for  the  highest  creaturely  exaltation,  relations  to  God, 
and  functions  in  the  universe  forever,  especially  after  the  judgment; 
by  being  so  peculiarized  in  nature  by  such  a  constitution  and  cap- 
abilities, as  to  be  in  the  image  and  after  the  likeness  of  God,  as  we 
are  not  told  any  other  order  of  creatures  is;  and  thus,  by  highest 
type  of  nature,  to  be  designedly  fitted  for  consummate  preeminence; 
by  the  designed  natural  relationship  of  them  all  to  Christ,  the  whole 
Godhead,  and  the  universe  by  the  incarnation;  and,  in  addition,  by 
the  spiritual  and  eternal  relationship  to  all  these  of  all  of  them  who 
shall  become  the  Church;  and  by  all  the  designs,  process  of  deal- 
ings, and  special  doings  of  the  Trinity  respecting  them  from  the  crea- 
tion of  Adam  onward  forever.  Thus  distinguished,  they  are  neces- 
sarily the  keystone  order  of  intelligent  bei7igs  in  the  universe,  the  center 
and  crown  of  the  whole  creation.  If  referred  to  Ps.  8:5  and  Heb.  2:7 
as  teaching  differently  in  saying — "Thou  madest  him  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,"  we  respond  in  the  brief  words  of  Moll  on  the  pas- 
sage in  his  Com.  on  Hebrews  (Lange's  Series),  merely  substituting 
the  word  corporeal  for  the  word  mortal  used  by  him,  that  "man's 
inferiority  to  angels,  having  its  ground  in  his  corporeal  nature,  is  but 
transient,  and  limited  to  earthly  life."  It  belongs  to  him  simply  as 
created,  not  as  the  redeemed  ivill  be  when  exalted  and  glorified  with 
Christ;  and  it  is  one  of  time  as  well  as  of  degree.  If  the  race  had 
remained  loyal  to  God,  every  one  of  it  would  have  partaken  of  the 
exaltation  which  would  then  have  awaited  it;  but  now  only  the 
Church,  the  redeemed  will  be  recipients  of  the  exaltation  and  glory 
promised  to  be  conferred  upon  them.  The  archetypal  design  for  the 
race  will  be  realized  only  in  them,  all  others  of  it  being  blasted  by 
sin,  like  fruits  by  some  hot  Sirocco  winds. 

§  102.    WHY  ALL  SINCE  ADAM  BEGIN  LIFE  IN  GREAT  PERIL,  AND  ARE  ON 
A  GRACIOUS,  NOT    LEGAL,  PROBATION  AS    HE  WAS. 

7.  Although  indicated  in  No.  5,  we  here  state  directly,  that  the 
lapse  and  loss  of  the  apostate  angels — the  organization  by  them  of 


LIFE  BEGUN  IN  GREAT  PERIL.  179 

a  kingdom  of  utter  hostility  to  God  and  all  good  beings,  of  pure 
malignant  wickedness,  lies   and  perversion,  unrestingly  striving  to 
accomplish  the  utmost  evil  in  the  universe — the  lapse  of  mankind 
through  the  agency  of  this  organization  under  its  head — the  whole 
development  of  sin  and  its  re^ilts  in  their  nature,  their  character, 
and  their  conduct  in  all  their  relations  and  conditions,  domestic, 
social,  civil,  political,  educational,  institutional,  and  religious,  from 
Adam's  first  transgression  on — the  loss  of  all  of  them  unretrieved 
through  the  redemptive  measure — these  were  not  facts  unforeseen 
by  God  when  He  adopted  His  plan,  and  bursting  in  on  it  afterwards, 
like  unanticipated  convulsions  and  cataclysms  to  nullify  or  derange 
it.     They  were  perfectly  foreseen,  as  unavoidably  mcidental  to  the 
absolutely  best,  or  only  possible  plan  of  a  universe  created  for,  and 
consummately   consisting  in,  free  moral  beings;  and   the   plan  was 
formed,    and   adapted    to    the   greatest   possible    degree,   to    meet, 
restrain,  counteract,  and  rescue  from  these  terrific  incidentals.    The 
very  grandeur  of  thd  nature  of  free  moral  beings  constitutes  their 
frightful   hazard    of    self-destruction.       They   are   neither   molded 
nor   conserved    in    rectitude   by    omnipotent    power,   but   by   the 
motives  of  whatever  truths   and   facts  are  known  and   recognized 
by   them,   and  by  whatever  influences  from   God  and  from   other 
good   beings,  if  any  such    are   shedding   or   exerting   them    upon 
them;  and  it  is  only  when  sufficient  of  both   to  good   are  brought 
to  bear  upon  them  to  carry  and  keep  their  wills  against  whatever 
contrary  ones  may  be   operating  upon   them,  that  they,  especially 
if  new-created,  can  be  conserved  from  making  shipwreck  of  them- 
selves.    Hence,  there  is  necessarily  measureless  peril,  as  we  have 
shown  before,  in   the  case  of  all  newly-created  moral  beings,  espe- 
cially in  the   earlier  part  of   their   probation,  Avhile  their  experi- 
ence and  observation  of  the  consequences  of  either  right  or  wrong 
moral    action,    beginning   at   nothing,    commonly    grow  so    slowly 
and  gain  such  meager  measures — their  intelligence  and   practical 
reason  are  in  the  mere  beginnings  of  their  development;  their  sen- 
sibility is  all  fresh,  quick,  and  impulsive  towards  perceived  or  imag- 
ined objects,  adapted  to  give  special  gratification;  their  will  is  unset 
in  the  confirming  habit  of  rectitude;  their  knowledge  of  truths  and 
facts  is  yet  slight;  and  the  urgency  upon   them  of  such  favorable 
influences  as  belong  to  their  crude  condition  is  still  trivial.     This 
peril  must  be  vastly  greater  in  the  case  of  our  race  than  in  that  of 
beings  created  separately  as  the  angels  are.     These  each  may  be 
created  in  full  natural  maturity,  and  capable  of  exerting  full  intel- 


l8o  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

lectual  and  moral  powers  at  once  in  acquiring  knowledge,  and  in 
perceiving  and  acting  according  to,  or  against,  moral  truth  and 
obligation;  so  that  they  can,  as  it  were,  begin  probation  with  an 
advanced  degree  of  knowledge,  capability  and  responsibility.  Adam, 
doubtless,  was  substantially  so  created,  and  began  his  probation  at 
such  an  advance;  Eve  also,  though  in  an  inferior  degree,  as  derived 
and  dependent.  But  the  case  differs  with  their  posterity.  Each  of 
them  begins  an  infant,  and,  even  if  our  first  parents  had  not  fallen, 
would,  as  7'eaUy  as  now,  have  needed  to  be  developed  under  the  care, 
teaching,  training,  example,  and  influence  of  parents  and  others. 
As  they  could  not  be  born  other  than  infants,  they  could  not  possi- 
bly be  put  on  separate,  independent  legal  probations  as  each  angel 
was  and  Adam  was.  For,  besides  whatever  constitutional  tendency 
they  might  inherit  from  Adam,  they  would  be  developed,  molded, 
and  incipiently  charactered  by  receiving  the  influence.;,  examples, 
teachings,  training,  and  whole  impression  of  parents  and  all  around 
them.  But  the  source  and  fountain  of  the  radical  bad  ten''encv 
and  of  the  whole  impression  and  molding  of  evil  kind  mu:,t,  as  i. 
respects  mankind,  be  traced  to  Adam,  as,  by  necessity  of  his  rel  i- 
tion,  the  natural  Head  and  Representative  of  all  his  posterity.  He, 
and,  in  a  subordinate  sense  Eve,  are  the  only  human  beings  who  ever 
had,  or  could  have,  a  separate,  legal  probation.  That  of  each  of  their 
descendants  is  a  merciful  and  gracious  one,  as  to  whecher  he  will  or 
not,  under  all  the  motives  and  influences  of  God's  merciful  and 
gracious  manifestations  and  revelations  of  all  kinds,  repent  during 
this  life,  and  accept,  in  faith,  offered  forgivenes?  and  the  restoring 
favor  of  God.  It  has  often  been  said,  an'd  truly,  that  the  legal  trial 
of  the  whole  race  in  Adam  was  better  in  every  re:.pect,  than  that  of 
each  of  them  separately  would  have  been.  But,  whether  better  or 
not,  the  legal  trial  of  each  for  himself  was  impossible;  and,  from 
the  nature  of  the  race-constitution  and  relation,  it  was  unavoidable 
that  Adam's  trial  should  really  be  for  them  all,  and  should  deter- 
■mine  the  integrity  or  vitiation  of  the  whole  human  nature,  the  rad- 
ical moral  tendency  or  proneness  of  each  regular  partaker  of  that 
nature  to  good  or  evil  as  really  as  of  himself. 

§  103.  WAS  IT  JUST,  BENEVOLENT,  AND  HONORABLE  IN  GOD  TO  CREATE 
OUR  RACE  SO  CONSTITUTED  AND  RELATED  TO  ADAM  ? 

Many  have  perplexed  and  vexed  themselves  and  others  vv'ith 
the  question  stated,  and  some  have  resorted  to  wondrous  shifts  to 
vindicate  His  innocence  of  any  wrong  in  the  case.    Of  these  shifts, 


LIFE  BEGUN  IN  GREAT  PERIL.  iSi 

one  was  the  wild  hypothesis  of  the  pre-existence  of  human  souls, 
constituted  as  angels,  who  fell  in  that  state  of  existence.  But  this 
hypothesis  lacks  evidence  from  revelation  or  any  other  source.  It 
involves  positions  so  prodigious,  that,  compared  with  them,  the 
fables  of  Lethe  and  Circe  are  trifles;  and,  were  it  proved  true,  the 
real  difficulty  in  the  case  would  remain  unchanged  and  unrelieved. 
For  that  difficulty  is  not,  as  is  assumed  in  this  hypothesis,  that  all  or 
any  of  Adam's  descendants  have  not  had  a  fair  probation,  as  they 
come  into  the  world  vitiated  in  nature,  so  that  they  all  violate  the 
law  in  their  first  moral  action;  but  it  lies  in  the  deeper  fact,  that 
God  should  create  any  moral  beings  at  all,  who,  He  foreknew, 
would  fall  and  be  forever  lost.  As  He  created  each  angel  sepa- 
rately, why  did  He  not  omit  from  them  all  who.  He  foreknew,  would 
apostatize,  and  would  work  such  measureless  evil,  not  only  among 
themselves,  but  to  our  race,  beginning  with  the  first  pair?  If  He 
had  omitted  them,  our  race,  might  not,  and  probably  would  not, 
then  have  fallen,  and  none  of  them  would  have  been  lost.  Or,  when 
He  foreknew  the  apostasy  of  man  through  the  Tempter,  and  that, 
although  He  would  intervene  in  the  redemptive  measure,  multitudes 
of  them  would  persist  in  sin,  die  incorrigible,  and  be  lost,  why  did 
He  not  so  arrange  to  control  human  increase  that  none  should  be 
born,  who,  He  foreknew,  would  so  live,  die,  and  forever  perish  ? 
Why  did  He  so  tenaciously  adhere  to  His  first  design  of  the  race- 
constitution,  and  not  prevent  such  immeasurable  evil?  Let  senti- 
mentalists who  assume,  and  with  such  zeal  assert  in  these  times,  in 
substance,  that  God  tnusi  create  no  moral  being,  unless  He  insures 
him  for  a  blessed  iinmortality,  consider  anew  whether  He  does  or  can 
do  any  such  insuring  business — whether  He  is  not  debarred  from  it 
by  the  very  nature  of  moral  beings  so  long  as  they  are  on  probation, 
whether  legal  or  gracious.  It  is  a  positive  certainty,  that  there  is, 
there  must  be,  some  all-outweighing  reason,  vitally  connected  with 
and  involved  in  God's  eternal  plan  of  His  universe,  which  He  will 
not  disregard  or  discard  by  the  least  departure  from  that  plan 
either  to  prevent  any  evil  or  to  insure  any  good  extraneous  to  it, 
however  great.  In  His  estimation,  that  reason  involves  a  good  to 
His  eternal  Jiniverse,  including  Himself,  so  incomparably  greater  than 
any  to  be  secured  by  His  carrying  on  a  universal  insurance  business, 
if  such  a  business  there  could  be,  that,  despite  His  absolute  fore- 
knowledge that,  if  He  should  create  all  the  angels  He  planned  for, 
such  a  part  of  them  would  apostatize,  work  measureless  evil,  and 
be  forever  lost,  He  did  create  them  all;  that,  despite  the  same  fore- 


l82  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

knowledge  that,  if  He  should  create  the  entire  human  race  He 
planned  for,  they  would  all  be  turned  by  Satan  into  apostasy  with 
ill  its  blight  and  curse,  and  a  great  proportion  of  tliem  would  die 
incorrigible  and  be  lost,  He  did  crealc  ihcin  all;  and  that,  despite 
the  same  foreknowledge  of  the  stupendous  cost  to  Himself  of  both 
these  full  creations,  if  done  by  Him,  He  did  create  them  botli. 
From  these  momentous  facts,  the  following  seem  proper  conclus- 
ions:— (i).  God's  plan  of  the  universe  was  absolutely  the  best,  or 
the  only  one  which  could,  in  the  universal  and  eternal  run,  succeed 
in  its  consummate  object  of  a  universal  and  eternal  society  and 
system  of  moral  beings: — (2).  It  was  unchangeable  and  eternal  as  a 
whole  and  in  all  its  essential  parts,  and  was  never  to  be  deviated 
from:— (3).  All  moral  beings  embraced  in  it  to  exist  were  to  be  cre- 
ated such  to  constitute  one,  and  only  one,  moral  society  and  system, 
as  their  natures,  having  the  one  social-moral  law  in  and  from  them, 
and  their  reciprocal  rights,  dues,  dependences,  interests,  concerns, 
obligations,  consciences,  and  natural  consequences  of  moral  action 
all  demonstrate  and  demand: — (4).  Hence,  neither  the  whole  of  the 
angels  nor  of  mankind,  nor  any  individual  of  either  of  them  could 
be  created  to  be  or  act,  or  to  be  regarded,  treated,  or  dealt  with  by 
God,  in  any  respect  as  if  separate  from  and  independent  of  that 
society  and  system,  but  solely  as  inherently  a  constituent  in  them. 
Not  one  of  them  was  created,  nor  exists,  nor  possibly  can  exist  for 
himself,  but  each  of  them  absolutely  for  God,  and  for  every  other 
one  as  for  himself;  so  that  none  of  them  is  his  own  proprietor,  but, 
while  God  is  absolute  Proprietor  of  them  all,  they  are  universally 
and  forever  reciprocal  proprietors  of  each  other: — (5).  As  God  cre- 
ated all  the  angels  and  men  embraced  in  His  plan  in  this  universal 
and  eternal  solidarity,  although  foreknowing  all  of  them  who  would 
be  lost,  for  the  same  supreme  reason,  we  may  be  sure,  He  will  never 
annihilate  any  of  them;  nor  will  He  ever  pardon  or  save  a  single 
sinner,  except  in  perfect  accordance  with  all  the  reciprocities  of  all 
kinds  included  in  the  solidarity  of  the  universal  moral  society  and 
system: — (6).  It  is  evident  from  the  preceding  connection,  that 
God's  supreme  end  in  planning  and  creating  moral  beings  was 
transcendently  above  their  mere  personal  happiness;  and  that  neither 
his  own  happiness,  nor  that  of  any  other  one  is  or  can  be  the  true 
moral  end  of  any  of  them.  God's  end  in  creating  them  was  their 
existence  as  such  social-moral  beings  in  their  natural  and  moral 
relations  to  Himself  and  to  each  other— that  is,  that  He  might  have 
a  universal  and  eternal  holy  society  and  system  of  such  beings — each 


LIFE  BEGUN  IN  GREAT  PERIL.  183 

rendering  to  Him  and  every  other  one  the  pure  moral  love  of  hh 
being  and  true  good,  which  fulfills  the  law  in  them.  The  good oi  God 
is  His  holy  character,  pleasure,  and  glory,  and  loving  Him  is  mak- 
ing these  our  supreme  end.  The  good  oi  a  created  moral  being  con- 
sists in  obeying  the  law,  or  acting  moral  love,  towards  God  and 
each  fellow  being,  in  all  the  natural  consequences  of  so  doing,  and 
in  all  the  regards  and  rewards  he  receives  in  return  from  them,  espec- 
ially from  God;  and  loving  them  morally  is  willing  this  complete 
good  to  each  of  them  as,  or  making  it,  our  end  respecting  him.  This 
same  complete  good  is  the  only  true  moral  end  of  each  respecting 
himself;  and  as,  in  the  moral  solidarity  of  the  universal  society  and 
system,  this  good  of  each  is  utterly  inseparable  from  that  of  every 
other  one,  and  its  vital  center  is  necessarily  the  moral  action  and 
character  of  loving  God  and  every  other  one  as  the  law  requires, 
which  alone  is  pure  ethical  justice,  while  its  residue  stated  depends 
entirely  upon,  and  lives  or  dies  with  this,  it  is  no  more  glaringly 
preposterous  to  call  a  square  a  circle,  than  to  say  that  anyone  can 
either  morally  make  his  own  separate,  isolated  good  his  end,  or 
possess  it  while  in  sin,  or  unless  in  obedience  to  and  acceptance 
with  God.  As  to  the  term  happiness,  it  has  neither  moral  signifi- 
cance, nor  definable  meaning;  but,  as  it  is  always  merely  personal, 
and  consists  only  in  feelings  or  experiences  of  pleasure  or  gratifi- 
cation of  some  kind,  consequential  on  various  conditions  not  neces- 
sarily moral,  it  palpably  cannot  be  the  true  good  of  anyone,  nor  the 
true  end  of  moral  action,  which  must  be  the  vital  center  of  the  true 
good.  Carlyle  rightly  spurned  Pope's  line — "Oh  Happiness!  our 
being's  end  and  aim!  "  But,  when  he  substituted  "blessedness"  for 
happiness,  he  changed  sound  rather  than  sense,  and  failed  to  see 
what  the  true  good  is,  because  he  did  not  recognize  the  moral  solid- 
arity of  the  universal  society  and  system.  A  social  system  must 
have  social  ends,  or  good  for  ends. 

The  question,  therefore,  of  God's  benevolence,  justice,  and 
honor  in  creating  our  race  or  any  other  moral  beings  goes  back  to, 
and  can  only  be  settled  by,  this  doctrine  of  the  plan  of  the  universe, 
and  it  comes  to  this;  which  was  better,  or  good,  right,  and  honorable 
in  God,  to  plan  and  create  the  total  universe,  constituted  through- 
out in  all  respects  as  He  knew  was  best  on  the  whole,  or  not  to  create 
it? — but  specially,  each  order  and  individual  of  rational  natures  ever 
to  exist  in  it,  foreknowing  all  that  would  be  true  of  each  of  them, 
and  all  that  the  lapsed  portion  of  them  would  cost  Himself,  or  to 
create  none  at  all,  and  to  dwell  eternally  alone  in  the  solitude  of 


i84  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

infinite  space?  For,  we  have  already  shown  that,  whoever  believes 
God  infinitely  good,  wise,  and  powerful,  must  believe  His  plan  of 
the  universe  incomparably  the  best  possible  for  many  reasons,  all 
crowned  by  this,  that  it  involved  such  infinite  self-denial  and  self- 
sacrifice  to  Himself  in  all  that  the  Son  became,  did,  and  suffered; 
and  that,  in  this  case,  incomparably  best  means,  we  |:hink,  the  only 
one  possible  for  a  universe  of  moral  beings,  necessarily  free-agents 
and  liable  to  temptation,  in  which  there  would  be  the  least  possible 
loss  and  the  greatest  possible  conservation,  reclamation,  and  eternal 
good  and  glory.  We  deem  it  certain,  that  God  devised  and  consti- 
tuted the  universe  of  such  beings,  so  as  to  involve  the  least  liability 
in  them  to  fall  into  sin  and  its  ruin  which  could  consist  with  the 
necessary  freedom  of  a  moral  system.  Of  all  God's  works,  the  most 
critical  and,  to  our  thought,  most  nearly  impossible  for  even  Him, 
must  have  been  the  creation  of  moral  beings  so  constituted  and  cir- 
cumstanced that  He  would  foreknow  that,  though  free,  they  would 
not  all  fall  and  perish,  but  that  there  would  be  a  sufficient  portion 
of  them,  who  would  not  sin  and  who  would  be  recovered  from  sin, 
to  constitute  an  eternal  society  and  system  of  holy  and  glorified 
ones,  and  to  make  it  best  and  benevolent  to  create  all  embraced  in 
His  plan.  One  thing  is  certain;  all  questions  concerning  the  good- 
ness, justice,  and  honor  of  God  in  creating  and  constituting  any 
order  or  individual  of  moral  beings  must  be  settled,  not  by  consider- 
ing either  as  if  separate  from  the  whole,  but  as  vitally  connected 
and  interlinked  with  it  in  order  to  secure  its  consummate,  eternal 
end;  so  that  neither  could  have  been  omitted,  nor  essentially  differ- 
ent from  what  it  is,  without  defeating  or  materially  damaging  that 
end.  We  must  rest  at  last  on  the  ground  that  infinite  goodness  im- 
pelled and  infinite  wisdom  guided  Him  to  create  the  whole  and 
every  part  in  incomparably  the  best  way,  if  not  in  the  only  one  in 
which  it  could  be  done  without  the  lapse  and  loss  of  all  embraced  in 
it,  and  with  the  loss  of  the  least  possible  number  of  them  and  the 
greatest  excellence  of  character  and  glory  secured  to  all  the  ever- 
augmenting  multitudes  of  the  conserved  and  saved. 

§  104.    THE    ENTIRE    PART    OF  THE    SON  OF   GOD    RADICALLY   INCLUDED 
IN  THE  ETERNAL   PLAN. 

8.  The  all-embracing  plan  included  the  entire  part  of  the  Son 
of  God.  He  was  the  Word,  the  Revealer  or  Manifester  of  God. 
All  worlds  and  creatures  were  to  be  created  by  and  for  Him,  and 
by  Him  were  to  be  upheld  and  to  consist  in  their  organization  and 


SOA''  OF  GOD— ETERNAL  PLAN:  1S5 

order.  He  was  to  be  the  giver  of  all  life,  and  the  Providential  Dis- 
penser for  this  world,  and  doubtless  for  all  worlds.  He  was  to  be 
Jehovah,  the  covenant  God  of  the  chosen  people,  and  the  Messiah 
to  appear  among  them  in  the  fullness  of  time  incarnate  forever  in 
our  nature,  the  antitypical  Adam  of  our  race,  who  was  to  go  through 
another  representative  probation  under  the  law  for  them  i?t  absolute 
obedience,  was  to  suffer  and  die  at  its  close  to  make  an  atonement 
for  their  sins,  and  to  rise  from  the  dead,  ascend  to  heaven,  be  glori- 
fied, and  be  exalted  there  to  the  Mediatorial  throne  as  part  of  His 
infinitely  deserved  reward.  His  reign  was  to  close  with  the  final 
judgment;  and,  during  it,  "the  things  in  the  heavens,  and  the  things 
upon  the  earth  were  all  to  be  summed  up  in  Him."  This  would  be 
done  in  two  ways — (i).  At  the  judgment,  the  completed  Church 
would  be  publicly  recognized  by  Him,  the  Judge  of  all,  before  all 
the  condemned  and  the  angels,  and  assigned  to  "the  kingdom  pre- 
pared for  it  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  all  the  holy  angels 
being  perfectly  reconciled  to  it  as  redeemed  and  exalted  to  the 
highest  creaturely  rank  and  authority  in  the  universe  by  Him. 
Thus,  in  Him,  the  Head,  there  would  be  absolute  harmony  between 
all  good  beings  forever — (2).  On  the  other  hand,  He  would  "put 
down  all  [hostile]  rule,  and  all  authority  and  power"- — would  put 
all  enemies  under  His  feet" — would  "destroy  him  that  would  have 
the  power  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil" — would  "gather  out  of  His 
kingdom  all  things  that  offend,  and  them  which  do  iniquity,"  and 
"cast  them  into  a  furnace  of  fire,"  "into  everlasting  fire,  prepared 
for  the  devil  and  his  angels" — and  would  thus  abolish  the  whole 
hostile  kingdom,  shutting  every  member  of  it  up  in  the  prison  of  the 
universe,  so  that  never  again  in  all  sequent  ages  would  it  be  infested 
or  infected  with  any  tempting  agency  or  influence.  These  two  results 
being  thus  accomplished,  "He  was  to  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to  God, 
even  the  Father" — that  is,  the  Mediatorial  kingdom,  which  was 
given  Him  when  He  ascended  to  heaven  after  His  resurrection,  that 
He  might  carry  on  and  complete  the  great  work  of  redemption. 
Having  done  this,  there  will  be  no  farther  use  for  His  Mediatorial 
reign,  and  He  will  resign  it  to  the  Father.  But  neither  His  human 
nature,  nor  His  Headship  over  the  whole  redeemed  Church,  nor  His 
sovereignty  over  all  beings  which  necessarily  belongs  to  Him  as  one 
of  the  Persons  of  the  Eternal  Godhead,  and  of  which  He  never  can 
divest  Himself,  is  included  in  what  He  will  then  deliver  up;  for  all 
these  are  independent  of  His  Mediatorial  reign,  and  will  pertain  to 
Him  forever.     But,  having  made  this  delivery,  "  He  will  Himself 


l86  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

be  subjected  to  Him  that  did  subject  all  things  unto  Him,  that  God 
may  be  all  in  all."  During  His  Mediatorial  reign,  Christ  is  "the 
all  in  all"  to  His  Church  (Col.  3:11) — that  is.  He  has  the  entire  care 
of  it,  and  from  and  through  Him  only  it  receives  all  Divine  commu- 
nications and  manifestations;  but,  when  it  is  ended,  although  He 
will  continue  its  Head  forever  in  a  special  sense,  yet,  as  the  redemp- 
tive measure  will  then  be  forever  completed,  and,  as  neither  Person 
of  the  Trinity  will  any  longer  have  His  distinct  office  in  its  execu- 
tion, they.  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  the  one  God,  will  evermore  act 
together,  and  be  "the  all  in  all"  to  the  total  holy  universe — that  is, 
as  there  will  be  no  need  of  a  Mediator,  He  will  immediately  mani- 
fest Himself  to,  deal  in  all  ways  with,  and  communicate  all  good 
and  blessedness  to  all  the  holy  forever.  The  part  of  our  Lord  will 
appear  farther  in  the  next  number. 

§105.    THE    WHOLE    DESTINY   OF   THE    CHURCH   AS    RELATED  TO  CHRIST 
INCLUDED  IN  THE  PLAN. 

9.  This  universal  plan  includes  the  whole  destiny  of  the  Church 
as  related  to  Christ  and  the  intelligent  universe.  Because  of  the 
designed  incarnation  of  the  Son,  and  through  the  redemption  of  the 
Church  secured  by  it,  all  its  individual  members  were  to  be,  by 
renovation  and  adoption.  His  brethren,  among  whom  He  would  be 
the  first-born,  and  not  ashamed  to  call  them  His  brethren  and  His 
children.*  By  this  relation  to  Him,  they  would  be  the  children  of 
God,  and  therefore  His  heirs,  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ  to  all  His 
inheritance.  They  would,  as  a  whole,  be  so  vitally  joined  to  Him, 
and  so  to  each  other,  as  to  be,  as  it  were,  organically  His  very  body, 
and  each  of  them  a  "member  of  it  in  particular"  (I.  Cor.  12:27) — 
"of  His  body,  of  His  flesh,  and  of  His  bones"  (Eph.  5:30).  At 
the  resurrection,  their  bodies  will  be  raised  incorruptible,  immortal, 
and  fashioned  like  His  glorious  body,  so  that  they  shall  be  in  His 
image  and  fitted  to  share  His  glory  forever.  He  would  make  them 
kings  and  priests  unto  God;  inheritors  of  a  kingdom  prepared  for 
them  from  the  foundation  of  the  world;  sitters  with  Him  in  His 
throne,  as  He  is  with  His  Father  in  His  throne,  to  reign  with  Him; 
judges  with  Him  of  the  unreclaimed  world  and  evil  angels  in  the 
final  judgment;  and  His  bride.  His  wife.  As  this  whole  plan  concern- 
ing the  Church  and  its  relations  to  Christ  and  the  universe  should  be 
fulfilled  and  displayed,  it  was  a  chief  "intent  that  unto  the  princi- 
palities and   the  powers  in  the  heavenly   places   might  be  known 

(*)  Rom.  8:29;  Heb.  2:11  15. 


DESTINY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  187 

through  the  Church  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God" — it  being  at 
once  their  instructress  and  the  consummate  example  of  it.  Except 
its  participation  in  judging  the  world  and  the  bad  angels,  all  else 
thus  ascribed  to  it  as  a  whole  and  indiiyidually  will  belong  to  it  for- 
ever; and  what  an  immortal  prospect  does  the  whole  present! 

Are  all  these,  so  inconceivably  exalted  above  all  other  created 
beings,  of  corresponding  special  importance,  in  their  connection 
with  Christ,  to  the  whole  intelligent  universe,  existing  and  ever  to 
exist?  As  brethren  of  the  great  first-born,  they  will  eternally  co-op- 
erate with  Him,  in  absolute  union  of  spirit  and  end,  in  all  common 
to  Him  and  them.  As  children  and  heirs  of  God  and  joint-heirs 
with  Christ  of  all  worlds  and  creatures,  they  will  participate  with 
Him  in  interest  in,  and  endeavor  to  secure  the  supreme  good  of  all 
moral  beings  in  them  all.  As  the  body  and  members  of  Christ, 
they  will  be  His  organ  and  agents  forever  in  accomplishing  His 
glorious  designs  respecting  all  other  moral  beings  with  which  He 
may  populate  the  worlds.  As  spiritually  kings,  reigning  with  Christ 
forever  and  ever,  they  will  not,  of  course,  rule  one  another,  nor  the 
lost  in  the  everlasting  prison,  but  all  other  moral  beings  existing  and 
to  exist  in  the  universe  in  all  futurity.  As  spiritually  priests  unto 
God,  they  will  officiate,  not  merely  for  themselves  in  perpetual  wor- 
ship and  praise,  nor  for  the  holy  angels,  but  for  the  same  beings  over 
whom  they  will  reign;  for  they  are  both  kings  and  priests  in  one  and 
to  the  same  ones.  As  the  Lamb's  wife,  besides  being  His  constant 
most  intimate  and  cherished  companion,  the  Church  will  be,  in  a 
most  vital  spiritual  sense,  the  mother,  nourisher,  guardian,  instruc- 
tress and  trainer  of  all  the  new  orders  or  races  who  shall  be  spirit- 
ually kept  from  lapse  and  ruin  by  her,  and  be,  in  this  sense,  the 
offspring  of  her  union  with  Him.  Such  are  the  characteristics  of 
the  designed  destiny  of  the  Church  as  related  to  Christ,  the  whole 
Godhead,  and  the  intelligent  universe;  and  it  is  sublime  and  import- 
ant beyond  the  thought  of  man  or  angel.  It  matters  not  how  far 
these  descriptions  may  be,  or  be  deemed,  symbolical,  its  destiny 
will  be  none  the  less  vitally  real  and  consummately  important  in  the 
intelligent  universe.  The  consummation  will  be  this: — All  hostile 
and  tempting  agency  being  utterly  suppressed  and  shut  up  forever 
at  the  judgment,  and  Christ,  with  His  Church  so  related  to  Him, 
to  the  whole  Godhead,  and  to  the  universe,  and  so  qualified 
by  its  origin,  history,  experience,  knowledge,  character,  and  glorifi- 
cation to  fulfill  all  the  transcendent  and  everlasting  functions  respect- 
ing other  orders  or  races  of  moral  beings  yet  to  exist,  which  these 


l88  GOD,   CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

descriptions  set  forth,  can  then  safely  create  one  after  another,  as 
world  after  world  shall  be  fitted  to  receive  it;  so  that  there  will 
never  be  another  fall  of  any  order,  race,  or  part  of  one,  but,  from 
their  origin,  they  will  all  be  under  the  fostering  care,  influence,  train- 
ing, teaching,  and  government  in  a  religious  and  moral  sense  of  this 
glorious  spiritual  mother,  the  Lamb's  wife — of  this  royal  priesthood 
— of  these  brethren  and  members  of  Christ — of  these  heirs  of  God 
and  joint-heirs  with  Christ  to  the  permanent  heritage  of  the  whole 
creation.  We  are  told  that  there  is  "an  innumerable  company"  of 
the  holy  angels,  and  the  redeemed  of  our  race  are  spoken  of  as  "  a 
great  multitude  which  no  man  could  number;  "  and,  as  ever-multi- 
plying successions  of  new  orders  or  races  of  moral  beings  added  in 
the  unending  future,  all  preserved  and  forever  blessed  through  the 
Church,  the  infinite  Mind  alone  can  grasp  the  ever-augmenting 
aggregate.  Compared  with  them,  the  whole  number  of  lost  angels 
and  men  will  not  be  in  the  proportion  of  one  to  myriads  !  Thus 
the  Church  will  eternally  be  the  one  grand  creaturely  organism  and 
sphere  for  the  manifestation  of  the  infinite  goodness  and  glory  of 
God,  and  the  co-operator  with  Christ  in  everlastingly  augmenting, 
conserving,  and  blessing  the  universe  of  moral  beings;  and  we  think 
there  is  or  may  be  a  sublime  and  glorious  meaning  of  more  than 
mere  doxology  in  the  wonderful  words  of  the  Great  Apostle  at  the 
end  of  Eph.,  Chap.  III.,  as  literally  rendered — "  Unto  Him  [God] 
be  glory  in  the  Church  unto  all  -the  generations  of  the  age  of  ages. 
Amen." 

These  nine  positions  embody  what  we  deem  to  be  the  substan- 
tial import  of  the  passages  referred  to  at  their  beginning,  and  of 
some  others  quoted  or  referred  to  as  we  have  proceeded.  We  think 
them  worthy  of  earnest  and  careful  consideration.  They  contain 
the  weightiest  conceivable  motives  to  induce  all  to  abandon  the 
doomed  cause  of  sin  and  Satan,  and  to  unite  themselves  to  Christ 
by  obeying  the  Gospel;  for  what  a  measureless  loss  it  will  be  to  fail 
of  having  a  part  in  the  inexpressibly  glorious  future  of  those  who 
are  heirs  of  God  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ  !  What  a  destiny  do 
they  unfold  for  all  who  truly  believe  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ! 


CHAPTER  X. 

God's  foreknowledge,  eternal  purpose,  election,  and  predestination. 
Divine  sovereignty  as  related  to  man's  freedom. 

§  io6.  god's  omniscience   natural,  eternal,  and  wholly  inde- 
pendent OF  HIS  WILL. 

At  the  bottom  of  all  questions  concerning  these,  lies  that  of 
the  omniscience  of  God.  That  is,  whether,  by  necessity  of  His  eter- 
nal nature.  He  has  absolute  knowledge  of  the  entire  universe  of 
matter  and  of  all  creatures  in  it  from  its  origin  ever  onward,  espe- 
cially of  His  rational  creatures,  of  all  that  will  ever  be  true  of  each 
of  them  as  to  action,  character,  states,  and  experiences,  and  as  to 
the  relations  of  each  of  them  to  Himself  and  to  every  other  one  all 
along  his  whole  immortal  existence,  and  also  of  all  that  will  be  true 
of  Himself  in  all  respects  and  in  all  His  relations  to  each  and  all 
of  them  forever.  That  He  has  such  knowledge  is  as  certain  as  that, 
by  the  same  necessity  of  His  nature,  He  has  omniscience,  omni- 
presence, immutability,  and  eternal  existence;  and  He  has  it  as  He 
has  that  of  all  His  other  natural  attributes,  in  as  total  independence 
of  any  action  of  His  own  will  as  of  that  of  any  or  all  His  creatures. 
If  He  could  limit  it  by  His  will,  as  imagined  by  Adam  Clark  and 
some  others,  there  is  no  reason  left  why  He  could  not,  by  the  same, 
reduce  Himself  to  total  ignorance  of  all  things,  nor  why  He  could 
not  equally  limit  or  even  abolish  His  omnipresence.  His  knowl- 
edge must  be  universal  and  absolute;  and  the  term  foreknowledge 
is  used  only  because,  in  our  time-relations  and  with  our  finite  facul- 
ties and  modes  of  knowing,  we  naturally  conceive  His  to  be  like 
ours  of  things  future  to  us.  To  escape  this  error,  we  must  remem- 
ber that  His  knowledge  is  unacquired,  natural,  and  eternal — which 
is  truly  a  fact  "  too  wonderful  for  us;  it  is  high,  we  cannot  attain 
unto  it."  From  the  same  conditions  of  our  finite  nature,  we  must 
in  like  manner  form  our  conceptions  of  all  included  in  God's  whole 
purpose  or  plan  of  a  redemptive  system.     We  remark  here  respect- 


igo  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

ing  knowledge,  infinite  or  finite,  that  it  causes  nothing,  makes  noth- 
ing this  or  that,  does  nothing,  determines  nothing  in  any  way,  is 
totally  inefficient,  while,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  itself  caused  and 
determined  to  be  precisely  what  it  is,  when  void  of  error,  by  its 
objects.  Things  do  not  exist  because  they  are  known  by  any  being, 
but  they  are  known  because  they  do  or  will  exist,  as  the  knower 
sees,  when  their  conditions  are  fulfilled.  Matter,  light,  life,  God 
will  not  exist  because  any  being  knows  they  will,  but  all  know  they 
will,  because  they  will  be  independent  of  all  knowledge. 

§  107.    ALL  WORLDS  AND  CREATURES    BY    AND    FOR    THE   SON,  AND  THE 
SCOPE  OF  THE  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

This  plan  included  in  the  redemptive  system  for  mankind  not 
only  the  incarnation  and  atonement  of  the  Son  to  rescue  them  from 
the  necessity  of  suffering  the  penalty  their  sin  would  deserve,  but  all 
the  truth  and  motives  of  God's  inspired  revelation,  all  the  manifes- 
tation made  by  Christ  of  the  infinite  merciful  and  gracious  love  of 
Himself,  His  Father  and  the  Spirit  for  them  in  His  temporal  life 
and  death,  all  He  would  continually  do  and  secure  for  them  by  His 
mediatorial  reign  and  intercessions,  all  that  the  Father  and  Holy 
Spirit  do  in  their  respective  gracious  offices,  all  that  is  done  in  truly 
Christian  ways  by  the  Church  and  individuals  of  it  in  their  differ- 
ent relations,  and  all  the  workings  and  manifestations  of  Providence. 
These  truths,  motives,  facts,  agencies,  and  influences  are  the  greatest 
possible  in  this  best  system,  so  that  we  cannot  even  imagine  any 
additions  to  them  to  bring  men  to  a  real  ethical  change,  which  can 
only  exist  in  a  most  free  and  cordial  turning  from  sin  to  true  obedi- 
ence to  God,  initiated  and  continued  by  faith  in  Him.  Like  the 
atonement,  all  these  are  designedly  adapted  for  the  recovery  of  all 
men  alike  from  sin  to  obedience.  They  are  in  fact  adapted  to  all 
alike,  and  to  suppose  them  limited  by  a  specializing  design  of  God 
to  any  part  of  the  race,  as  sinners,  would  conflict  with  the  reasons 
shown  why  the  atonement  must  be  provisionally  for  all  alike. 
Hence,  whether  all,  or  only  a  part,  of  mankind  under  the  Gospel, 
capable  of  acting  accountably,  shall  be  brought  by  what  is  included 
in  and  connected  with  the  redemptive  plan  to  the  ethical  state  it 
requires  as  the  necessary  condition  of  both  forgiveness  and  the  rela- 
tions to  God  conferred  with  it,  must  be  decided  ultimately  oi-  conclu- 
sively by  each  one'' s  oxvn  act  or  choice  in  yielding  or  refusing  to  yield  to 
the  motives  and  influences  brought  to  them  by  the  execution  of  the  plan. 
This  determining  choice  cannot  be  made  for  one  by  any  other  being, 


DIFFICULTY  OF  BRINGING  MEN  TO  REPENT.  191 

nor  compelled,  nor  dispensed  with,  since  all  that  is  morally  good  or 
bad,  right  or  wrong  in  any  moral  being  must  consist  in  and  result 
from  it.  Of  course,  the  heathen  who  have  no  knowledge  of  the 
Gospel  can  only  make  this  choice  under  such  truths,  motives,  aid 
influences  as  they  have  in  its  absence;  and  yet  each  of  them  does 
and  must  make  it  under  these,  and  thus  determines  for  himself  its 
consequences,  good  or  bad.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  therefore, 
the  question  of  the  salvation  of  accountable  mankind  is  necessarily 
determined  by  each  of  them  for  himself  during  his  probation  under 
whatever  light,  motives,  and  influences  he  has.  Conditions  never 
cease  for  any  in  this  life,  because  probation  does  not;  and  such  is 
the  plan  as  it  relates  to  man  in  this  world. 

§  108.    DIFFICULTY  OF  BRINGING  MEN  TO  REPENT,  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF 
THE  spirit's  agency. 

It  must  not  be  overlooked,  if  we  would  comprehend  the  whole 
case,  that,  as  we  have  shown,  not  one  of  our  race  ever  would  or 
could  truly  repent  without  the  redemptive  system;  nor  even  with  it 
and  under  its  revealed  truths  and  motives,  unless'  brought  to  do  so 
by  the  gracious  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  is  secured  by 
and  included  in  it.  It  is  under  this  alone  that  any  ever  abandon 
their  sinful  choice  and  begin  and  persevere  in  the  right  one;  and, 
humanly  speaking,  to  bring  them  to  do  this  even  by  this  power,  is 
the  greatest  achievement  of  God — only  not  a  miracle,  because  it  is 
constantly  effected  in  numbers.  This  is  proved  by  numerous  facts, 
of  which  one  is  the  case  of  such  multitudes  who  have  knowledge  of 
the  Gospel,  profess  to  hold  it  true,  are  more  or  less  impressed  and 
afi'ected  by  it,  are,  perhaps  the  largest  number  of  them,  at  times 
deeply  convicted  of  their  sin  and  need  of  a  Saviour,  often  most 
jjungently,  and  yet  obstinately  refuse  to  give  it  up  by  trusting  and 
obeying  Him.  Another  is,  that  it  costs  such  numbers  of  those  who 
do  make  this  change  such  strenuous  struggles  to  do  so;  another 
is,  the  strong  averments  in  Scripture  of  our  Lord,  His  Apostles,  and 
others  respecting  the  greatness  of  the  change  and  the  difficulty  of 
bringing  men  to  make  it.  Another  is,  that  ministers  and  all  of  all 
times  who  have  endeavored  to  bring  men  to  make  it  have  ever  found 
and  seen  it  a  supremely  difficult  thing  to  be  accomplished,  and 
beyond  their  power.  Another  is  the  eager  proneness  of  great  num- 
bers to  hail  and  adopt  any  species  of  infidelity  or  skepticism  adverse 
to  obligation  to  Christ  or  to  God.  Another  is  the  unbelief  and 
moral  blindness  universally  gendered  by  sin.     Another  is  the  bind- 


192  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  FLA  I/. 

ing  force  of  the  habit  of  sin  to  hold  men  in  it,  despite  all  their  knowl- 
edge and  conviction  of  its  guilt  and  evil,  and  all  motives  and  influ- 
ences to  forsake  it.  Another  is  their  intense  devotion  to  pleasure 
and  self-gratification,  reckless  of  conflicting  obligations  and  of  all 
the  evil  consequences  to  themselves  and  others,  both  in  this  world 
and  in  that  which  is  to  come;  and,  besides  these,  there  are  many 
others.  It  is,  therefore,  utterly  in  vain  to  suppose  any  of  the  race 
ever  would  or  could,  of  themselves,  repent  without  the  redemptive 
provisions,  or  with  them,  not  only  if  ignorant  of  them,  but  if  having 
the  fullest  knowledge  of  them  they  can  have  in  sin.  The  Holy 
Spirit  was  given  to  men  on  the  basis  of  the  atonement;  and,  as  He 
was  provisionally  for  all,  so  He  freely  exerts  His  power  upon  all  in 
the  largest  measure  He  sees  consistently  practicable  and  therefore 
wisest  and  adapted  to  secure  the  greatest  number  of  true  conver- 
sions with  the  best  universal  and  endless  results.  The  power  He 
exerts  on  men  is  specifically  different  from  mere  physical  omnip- 
otence exerted  on  matter.  //  is  spiritual potver  exerted  on  their  spir- 
ituahiature,  not  in  any  way  to  change  its  identity,  to  conflict  with  its 
laws,  to  supercede  the  proper  normal  action  of  its  intelligence,  sen- 
sibility, and  will,  nor  to  release  it  from  the  necessity  of  intelligently 
arbitrating  its  own  moral  action  in  compliance  with,  or  in  opposi- 
tion to,  the  moral  truth  and  its  motives  before  it.  Its  operation  is 
limited  by  all  these,  being  to  affect,  quicken,  and  energize  the  dark- 
ened moral  reason,  the  obtuse  conscience,  and  all  the  disordered  and 
torpified  faculties  and  susceptibilities  of  the  moral  nature,  thus 
bringing  the  mind  to  perceive,  realize,  and  feel,  and  the  will  out  of 
the  bondage  of  the  dire  habit  of  sin  into  a  free  yielding  to  the 
sacred  truth  and  motives  before  and  upon  it.  We  know  that  He 
accomplishes  this,  among  the  most  difficult  and  greatest  works  of 
God,*  in  only  a  part  of  mankind;  but  why?  It  cannot  be  because 
He  values  their  being,  pities,  or  desires  to  save  them  more  than 
others,  or  has  any  partiality  for  them  either  as  beings  or  as  sinners; 
nor  because  He  does  not  exert  upon  each  of  them,  as  he  is  person- 
ally in  all  respects,  and  as  he  is  related  to  all  others  in  the  natural, 
social,  and  moral  system,  all  this  power  He  can  consistently  with 
His  absolute  knowledge  of  what  is  wisest  and  best  for  all;  for  not  to 
do  this  would  conflict  with  the  nature  of  mercy  and  of  the  whole 
case,  and  would  be  partial  and  arbitrary.^  But  it  is  because  these 
\do,  and  others  do  not,  under  all  He  thus  does  to  bring  all  and  each 

(*)  Eph.  1:19;   2:IO. 

(+)  Ez.  l8:2.-^,  ?,2\  7,2:t,\  John  3:16,  17;  I.  Tim.  2:4;  Tilus  2:11;  II.  Pet.  3:9. 


REPENTANCE.  i„j 

of  them  to  yield  to  and  receive  His  grace,  arbitrate  to  do  so.  The 
self-determined  action  of  each  is  necessarily  the  hinge  on  which  the 
result  turns.  No  assertion  of  the  spirit's  all-efficiency  to  bring  all  to 
yTeTd7~if  He  so  willed,  has  any  real  pertinency  to  the  case.  God 
created  them  moral  beings,  and  must  act  upon  and  treat  them  as 
such.  He  created  them  so,  that,  by  necessity  of  their  nature,  they 
all  and  each  stand  in  organic  correlation  to  each  other  and  the  uni- 
versal society,  and  He  must  act  towards  and  treat  each  of  them  as 
their  moral  relations  to  each  other  and  that  society  demand.  He 
created  them  according  to  an  all-embracing  plan  of  natural  and 
moral  correlation,  and  to  this  He  related  His  other  i)lan  of  redemp- 
tion with  perfect  designed  adaptation  for  them  all  alike;  and,  in 
executing  it,  He  must  act  towards  each  of  them  according  to  and 
within  the  lines  of  the  former.  We  have  before  shown  that,  as 
beings  and  sinners,  and  as  related  to  God,  His  law  and  government, 
the  universal  and  everlasting  holy  society,  and  the  demand  of  justice 
as  retributive  against  them,  they  are  all  alike,  and  that  He  and  these 
are  all  related  alike  to  them  as  such;  and  that,  as  the  nature  of 
mercy  is  to  will  and  seek  the  good  of  sinners,  as  far  as  it  consists 
with  the  good  of  the  obedient,  for  its  own  sake,  He  must  have  that 
disposition  towards  them  all  alike,  and  act  it  towards  them  all  on 
the  same  general  principle.  It  matters  not,  therefore,  what  His 
efficiency  is  in  itself.  He  can  only  exert  it  on  finite  moral  beings  as 
such — on  them  in  a  universal  organic  correlation  as  such — on  them 
as  existing  by  and- according  to  a  universal,  all-interlinking  plan, 
and  so  according  to  it — on  them  as,  for  all  the  facts  and  reasons 
stated  before  and  here,  all  alike  objects  of  mercy — on  them  as  by 
nature  necessarily,  under  all  possible  motives  and  influences, 
deciders  of  their  own  moral  action,  right  or  wrong.  Hence,  His 
exertion  of  it  on  any  of  them  cannot  go  beyond,  but  must  be  con- 
fined by  and  within  the  limits  of  all  these  facts,  as  the  ocean  is  by 
and  within  its  shores.  In  other  words,  by  planning  and  constituting 
them  and  their  normal  relations  as  He  has.  He  restricted  the  exer- 
tion of  His  efficiency  upon  them  within  the  limits  of  that  primary- 
plan.  On  the  other  hand,  His  infinite  mercy  and  goodness,  revealed 
it  the  whole  redemptive  system  with  Christ  in  His  infinite  atone- 
ment as  representatively  the  substitute  of  all,  make  it  certain  that 
He  exerts  His  spiritual  power  upon  every  one  of  them  up  to  those 
limits,  or  to  the  utmost  degree  morally  possible.  Those  whom  He 
brings  by  it  to  yield  themselves  in  perfect  freedom  to  the  truth  and 
motives  before  them,  as  He  can  cause  them  to  apprehend  them,  God 


194  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  FLAI7. 

will  save,  while  those  whom  He  cannot  bring  by  it  to  do  this,  but 
who  persist  in  sin  despite  all  the  truth  and  motives  before  them,  as 
He  can  cause  them  to  apprehend  them,  God  cannot  save,  and  they 
must  perish.  No  predestination  is  involved  in  their  destruction,  nor 
possible  against  them  from  the  nature  of  the  case.  They  sink  of 
themselves  by  moral,  as  plummets  do  in  water  by  natural  gravita- 
tion. From  all  this,  it  is  obvious,  that  the  case  of  all  mankind,  as 
sinners,  in  their  relation  to  God's  efficiency,  coincides  exactly  with 
it  in  their  relation  to  the  atonement,  so  that  whether  His  efficiency 
shall  be  effectual  to  them,  as  whether  the  atonement  shall  be  actual 
for  them,  is  necessarily  conditioned  on  their  own  action  under  it,  in 
yielding  to  or  resisting  it. 

§  109.    WHAT  MUST  BE  TRUE  OF  THE  DIVINE  SOVEREIGNTY  AS  RELATED 
TO  man's  FREEDOM. 

We  thus  see  what  must  be  true  of  Divine  Sovereignty,  and  its 
relation  to  man's  freedom.  The  notion  that  God  elected  and  pre- 
destinated a  certain  number  or  part  of  mankind  to  holiness  and  sal- 
vation for  some  supposed  secret,  unrevealed  reason  or  reasons, 
outside  of,  and,  in  the  order  of  things,  antecedent  to  and  independent 
of  His  redemptive  measure,  instead  of  electing  all  He  foresaw  He 
could  bringhy  that  measure  to  ethical  fitness  for  forgiveness  and  all 
included  in  salvation,  cannot  possi'bly  be  true.  It  conflicts  with  all 
the  facts  of  the  case  which  are  indicated  at  the  beginning  of  the  pre- 
vious Chapter;  with  the  whole  current  of  Scripture  respecting  those 
facts,  respecting  the  redemptive  measure,  specially  the  atonement, 
as  related  both  to  all  mankind  and  to  the  elect,  and  respecting  all 
mankind  and  the  elect  as  related  to  it;  with  the  nature  of  mercy 
which  is  as  impartial  as  justice;  therefore  with  the  law  itself  which 
is  essentially  the  same  rule  of  moral  action  in  God  as  in  other  moral 
natures,  and  requires  absolutely  impartial  good-vvill  to  and  treat- 
ment of  all  equally  according  to  their  moral  characters,  good  or  bad, 
and  their  consequent  moral  relations;  with  the  fact  that  Christ  was 
the  representative,  not  of  a  part  of,  but  of  all  mankind  in  all  His 
action  for  them,  and  supremely  in  His  voluntarily  endured  atoning, 
suffering,  and  death  for  them;  with  the  fact  that  the  elect  were 
"  chosen  in  Him  before  the  foundation  of  the  world;"  with  the  abso- 
lutely unqualified  equal  offer  to  all  alike  of  salvation  through  Him 
on  condition  of  "  repentance  towards  God  and  faith  in  Him;  "  and 
with  other  facts.  He  was  the  sphere  in  which  God  acted  the  elec- 
tion; and  therefore  He  did  not  make  it  02it  of,  and  antecedent  to 


THE  REDEMPTIVE  MEASURE.  I95 

His  plan  of  the  redemptive  measure,  of  which  Christ,  by  all  He  was, 
did,  suffered,  and  secured  for  men,  was  the  fulfilling  consummation, 
for  any  supposed  secret  reason  or  reasons  whatever.  On  the  con- 
trary, as  the  redemptive  plan  was  all  founded  upon  and  centered  in 
Him,  and  as  this  plan  or  purpose  was  purposed  in  Him,  the  expres- 
sion, in  Him,  can  mean  nothing  else,  than  that  all  the  reasons  for, 
and  the  making  of,  the  election  were  originated  and  founded  entirely 
in  Him,  as  in  Himself  and  all  He  did,  suffered  and  secured  for 
men,  the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit  included,  the  fulfilling  consum- 
mation of  that  eternal  purpose  or  plan.  Out  of,  and  but  for  Him, 
there  would  and  could  have  been  no  such  plan,  and  no  election  of 
any.  It  was  made  entirely  with  reference  to  the  effects  which  God 
foresaw  He  could  secure  by  the  execution  of  the  plan  in  Christ  in 
bringing  men,  in  their  freedom  of  choice  to  comply  with  the  ethical 
condition  of  salvation,  and  was  of  all  He  foresaw  He  could  consist- 
ently bring  to  do  this.  If  He  had  foreseen  that  He  could  thus 
bring  all.  He  would  assuredly  have  elected  all.  Hence,  the  election 
of  only  a  part  of  mankind  was  in  no  sense  arbitrary,  partial,  or 
against  the  equal  chance  of  all  others  to  be  saved  on  the  same  con- 
dition, if  they  will,  but  was  simply  God's  deter minatio7i  to  save  each 
one  He  saw  He  could  consistently  bring  to  comply  with  that  neces- 
sary condition,  while,  with  equal  desire  and  disposition  of  mercy. 
He  is  doing  all  He  consistently  can  to  bring  all  others  to  do  the 
same,  and  they  will  not. 

§  1 10.    NO  OTHER  REASONS  FOR  ELECTION  THAN  THE  FORESEEN  EFFECTS 
OF  THE  REDEMPTIVE    MEASURE. 

Men  can  suppose  anything;  but  not  only  is  there  no  ground  in 
Scripture  or  the  nature  of  the  case  or  the  moral  system,  in  which 
God's  action  is  included,  for  supposing  that  He  had  any  reason  or 
reasons  for  His  election  extraneous  to  and  independent  of  those 
consisting  in  the  effects,  foreseen  by  Him,  of  the  redemptive  meas- 
ure, to  secure  which  He  planned  it,  and  which  are  the  greatest 
possible  number  of  mankind  saved,  the  greatest  possible  ever- 
lasting good  of  all  holy  beings,  and  the  greatest  possible  satis- 
faction and  glory  to  Himself  forever,  but  there  are  in  all  these, 
as  we  have  already  sufficiently  shown,  and  as  will  be  additionally 
shown  in  subsequent  places,  insuperable  grounds  against  the  sup- 
position. Such  an  election  would  be  purely  arbitrary,  and  in  con- 
flict with  the  constitution  and  moral  system  of  the  intelligent 
universe;  and  there  could  be  no  such  supposed  reasons.     We  main- 


196  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIl^E  PLAN: 

tain  in  opposition  to  it,  that  the  main,  general,  and  determining 
reasons  for  God's  elective  choice  are  not  hidden  from  and  inscru- 
table to  man,  but  are  revealed  and  manifest,  and  are  precisely  those 
we  have  stated.  God  foresaw  them  when  He  formed  and  adopted 
the  plans  of  both  creation  and  redemption,  and  never  will,  nor  right- 
eously can,  in  any  case  depart  frotn  them.  The  baffling  difficulty  of 
comprehending  why  one  is  brought  by  the  agency  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  upon  or  in  him  to  yield  to  it,  while  another,  apparently  in 
equally  favorable  or  in  even  far  better  conditions,  and  under  a  stronger 
exertion  of  it  is  not,  that,  in  his  case,  it  is  different  in  kind 
or  design  from  what  it  is  in  the  case  of  the  other,  but  is  in  the  won- 
drous, inscrutable  power  of  the  will,  with  which  God  constitued 
mankind  and  all  finite  moral  beings,  to  arbitrate  or  determine  their 
own  moral  action  or  choices  under  all  the  motives,  influences,  and 
agencies  which  may  or  can  operate  upon  them,  either  in  accordance 
with  or  in  opposition  to  them,  whether  urging  to  good  or  to  evil.  This 
power  is  awful  when  in  sin,  the  more  it  is  habit-set  in  it  and  the  eyes 
of  moral  reason  are  darkened  by  it.  We  have  already  noticed  how  des- 
perately the  will  of  men  is  set  in  sin,  and  how  correspondingly 
difficult  it  is,  even  for  the  Spirit  of  God,  to  overcome  it  and  bring 
it  into  submission  to  God,  because  its  power  is  especially  evinced 
in  resisting  Him  and  all  the  truths,  motives,  and  facts  to  which  they 
should  yield.  The  Bible  never  assigns,  as  the  reason  or  any  part  of 
it  why  those  who  persist  in  sin  are  not  brought  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  comply  with  the  terms  of  salvation,  that  they  were  not  elected,  or 
that  they  have  only  His  "common  operations,"  not  His  special 
efficiency,  or  that  God  had  any  reason  whatever,  secret  or  revealed, 
ag:iinst  doing  all  possible  according  to  the  moral  system  founded  in 
His  cr.vn,  in  their,  and  in  all  other  moral  nature  to  convert  and  save 
them.*  The  reason  it  always  assigns  is  their  own  positive  unwill- 
ingness to  do  the  ethical  condition  of  receiving  all  grace,  to  bring 
them  to  do  which  the  Spirit's  agency  is  exerted.  As  His  agency  is 
not  physical,  but  spiritual  power,  and  as  it  is  never  exerted  on  any 
beyond  what  is  consistent  with  their  moral  nature,  and  best  on  the 
whole  for  all  others  in  the  moral  system,  it  is  never  such  that  the 
will  of  man  in  sin  cannot  resist  or  refuse  to  yield  to  it.  Accordingly 
our  Lord,  who  spoke  for  the  whole  Godhead,  told  the  opposing 
Jews — "Ye  will  not  come   to   me,   that  ye  might  have  life."     He 

(*)  Ez.  18:23,  31,  32;  33:11;  John  3:16,  17;  I.  Tim.  2:4-6;  Titus  2:ii;  II.  Pet. 
3:9;  and  add  all  the  invitations,  promises,  threatenings,  warnings,  expostulations, 
exhortations,  and  entreaties  of  the  Word  of  God  addressed  to  all  alike;  and, 
above  all,  the  atonement  of  Christ  provisionally  for  all. 


GOD'S  SOVtLRETGNTY.  I97 

lamented  over  Jerusalem,  that  though  He  would  oiiQW  have  gathered 
its  children  together,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under 
her  wings,  they  would  not.  In  upbraiding  the  cities  wherein  most 
of  His  mighty  works  were  done.  He  declared  that,  if  they  had  been 
done  in  Tyre,  Sidon,  and  Sodom,  those  fearfully  corrupt  heathen 
cities,  they  would  Itave  repented,  while  these  would  not;  and  that  it 
would  therefore  be  more  tolerable  in  the  day  of  judgment  for  those 
than  for  these.  He  thus  clearly  taught,  not  only  that  they  did  and 
could  resist  all  the  mighty  motives  and  influence  of  His  manifold 
works,  teachings,  and  holy  presence  among  them,  but  that  some  do 
and  can  resist  vastly  greater  ones  than  would,  and  doubtless  often  do, 
suffice  to  convert  others,  even  though  seemingly  far  less  within  like- 
lihood of  being  converted  at  all.  The  case  of  the  Ninevites  repent- 
ing under  the  preaching  of  Jonah,  cited  by  our  Lord,  proves  the 
same  thing  (Mat.  12:41).  He  declared  the  reason  of  the  condem- 
nation of  men,  that  they  loved  darkness  rather  than  light,  because 
their  deeds  were  evil;  that  they  would  not  believe;  that  they  make 
futile  excuses  for  not  accepting  the  invitations  to  the  feast  provided 
for  them;  and,  while  Stephen  charged  the  Jews  he  addressed  with 
resisting  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  their  fathers  did,  Paul  declares  it  a 
special  characteristic  of  the  wicked  men  of  the  last  days,  that  they 
resist  the  truth;  and  stubborn  unbelief  is  everywhere  in  Scripture 
assigned  as  the  reason  sinners  are  not  saved.  The  difficulty  of  see- 
ing why  some  yield  to,  and  others  resist,  all  the  motives  set  before 
them  and  the  influences  and  operations  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  of 
men  upon  them,  to  bring  them  from  sin  to  God  is  not  confined  to 
this  matter  alone,  but  confronts  us  equally  when  different  ones  are 
constantly  seen  arbitrating  their  choices  oppositely  respecting 
matters  and  courses  in  this  life  under  the  same  general  outward 
motives  and  influences.  This  power  of  will  in  man  and  all  moral 
natures  is  entirely  incomprehensible  to  us,  as  all  being  and  all  fac- 
ulties are,  all  we  know  of  them  being  that  they  really  exist  as  they 
do.     All  ontology  is  a  myster 

§  III.    IN  WHAT  god's    sovereignty  CONSISTS. 

In  what,  then,  does  God's  sovereignty  consist?  Not,  of  course, 
in  His  electing  and  predestinating  some  of  mankind,  for  the  mani- 
festation of  His  glory,  unto  eternal  life  and  glory,  and  in  His  pass- 
ing by  and  foreordaining  the  rest  of  them,  for  the  glory  of  His 
sovereign  power  over  His  creatures,  to  dishonor  and  wrath  or  ever- 
lasting death  for  their   sin,  to  the  praise  of  His  glorious  justice. 


U)S  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

according  to  the  secret  counsel  and  good-pleasure  of  His  own  will, 
or  for  any  secret,  unrevealed  reason  or  reasons  whatever  outside  of 
and,  in  the  order  of  things,  antecedent  to  His  devising  the  plan  of 
redemption;  and  not  in  carrying  out  those  decrees  in  time,  in  exe- 
cuting that  measure  exclusively  for  those  thus  elected,  by  the  whole 
mission  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Gospel  of  grace,  and  the  effectual  call 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  while  others  have  no  such  call,  but  merely  some 
"common  operations"  of  His,  if  any,  not  designed  to  bring  them 
out  of  their  state  of  sin  and  death  to  grace  and  salvation,  who  yet, 
for  their  willful  neglect  and  contempt  of  the  grace  offered  to  them, 
are  justly  left  in  their  unbelief,  and  never  truly  come  to  Jesus  Christ. 
There  have  been  many  myriads  of  glorious  men  and  people  who 
could  believe  what  is  thus  stated,  as  there  are  and  will  be  myriads 
more;  but  never,  from  earliest  direction  of  his  thought  to  it  by  a 
father,  who  thoroughly  understood  and  believed  it,  and,  by  catechet- 
ical and  other  inculcations,  endeavored  to  train  his  children  to  do 
the  same,  could  this  writer  for  a  moment  receive  it  as  true.  He,  as 
is  already  manifest  from  the  foregoing,  believes  it  consists  in  God's 
devising  and  executing  His  plans  of  both  creatio?i  and  redemption 
entirely  of  Himself  exactly  as,  in  His  infinite  knowledge,  goodness, 
and  wisdom.  He  saw  was  absolutely  best  for  all  the  ends  of  His 
benevolence.  As  it  related  to  the  creation  of  mankind  and  all  moral 
natures,  it  consisted  in  constituting  them  just  as  He  did,  rational, 
sensitive,  with  will-power  necessarily  free  to  determine  their  own 
moral  choices  under  all  motives  and  influences,  immortal,  having 
His  law  in  their  moral  reason,  and  being  thus,  by  necessity  of 
nature,  universally  in  a  moral  system  and  under  His  moral  govern- 
ment, to  be  ruled  by  Him  exactly  as  the  immutable  law  with  its 
characteristics  in  Him  as  well  as  in  them  requires,  and  therefore 
invariably  without  partiality  or  arbitrariness,  and  according  to  the 
nature,  character,  deserts,  and  relations  of  each,  as  He  sees  them. 
As  the  fall  of  the  first  human  pair,  and,  with  them,  if  spared  from 
the  punishment  they  deserved,  of  their  whole  posterity,  was  per- 
fectly foreknown  by  Him  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  it  con- 
sisted in  His  purposing  to  spare  them  and  so  their  race  during  a 
limited  life  of  gracious  probation  in  this  world,  notwithstanding  His 
foresight  of  all  that  would  be  true  of  every  one  of  them,  and  of  all 
that  this  purpose  would  cost  Himself  It  consisted  in  devising,  as 
the  ground  of  this  purpose,  the  entire  redemptive  measure,  includ- 
ing Christ,  His  atonement,  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  whole  inspired 
revelation  with  all  its   truths   and  motives,  as  a  provision  of  pure 


GOD'S  SOVEREIGNTY.  199 

mercy  and  grace  for  them  all  alike  as  sinners,  as  the  impartial 
nature  of  mercy  required  it  should  be,  being  moved  thereto  by  His 
infinite  pity  for  them  in  their  foreseen  ruined  state  with  the  miti- 
gating circumstances  involved  in  it,  and  by  His  foresight  of  the 
multitudes  of  them  He  could  save,  and  of  the  measureless  good  He 
could  accomplish  by  it  to  His  entire  holy  society  and  Himself  for- 
ever. But,  while  He  devised  this  stupendous  provision  for  all  alike 
as  sinners,  He  perfectly  foreknew,  that  part  of  them  He  could  not, 
and  part  of  them  He  could,  bring  by  it,  administered  in  the  wisest 
and  best  possible  way,  to  forsake  sin  and  return  to  Him  in  faith  and 
its  obedience.  But,  as  He  foreknew  each  of  them  He  could  bring 
by  it,  so  administered,  to  do  this,  if  He  adopted  the  measure,  and 
that  their  number  would  more  than  compensate  for  all  it  would  cost 
Him,  His  sovereignty  consisted  further  in  adopting  it  for  the  sake 
of  saving  these  from  sin  and  ruin,  and  so  "in  choosing  or  electing 
them  in  Jesus  Christ,  according  to  the  foreknowledge  of  God  the 
Father,"  in  the  only  proper  sense  of  that  word,  "to  obedience"  and 
all  else  Scripture  tells  us  they  are  elected  or  chosen  to,  culminating 
in  salvation.  It  consisted  further  in  His  predestinating  all  thus 
elected  to  aggrandizements,  glories,  blessedness,  and  eternal  relations 
to  Christ,  to  the  Father,  to  the  Spirit,  and  to  the  whole  intelligent 
universe,  all  additional  to  salvation  in  itself,  and  surpassing  all 
highest  conceptions  of  any  of  themselves  in  this  life.  Beyond  all 
these,  it  consists  in  His  determining  the  order  and  procession  of 
all  His  providences,  general  and  special,  towards  mankind  univer- 
sally, towards  nations,  communities,  families,  and  persons  in  all  their 
relations  and  conditions.  In  short,  it  consists  in  His  devising, 
determining,  and  doing  all  His  own  measures,  works,  courses,  and 
acts  absolutely  of  Himself,  or  according  to  the  counsel  of  His  own 
will,  as  in  His  infinite  knowledge,  goodness,  and  wisdom  He  sees 
best  for  all  the  ends  of  His  benevolence.  We  add  respecting  all 
who  exhaust  their  probation  in  sin  despite  whatever  knowledge  they 
have  of  His  mercy  and  grace  towards  men,  and  whatever  agency 
His  Spirit  could  properly  exert  upon  them,  that  it  consisted  in 
His  purposing  their  existence  according  to  the  race-system  which 
He  chose  as  best,  to  do  the  best  He  could  for  each  of  them 
providentially  and  by  His  Spirit  during  his  time-relations  to  others 
in  that  system,  and  to  inflict  on  each  of  them  the  exact  pun- 
ishment he  deserves,  neither  more  or  less,  as  demanded  by  jus- 
tice to  him  as  retributive,  and  to  Himself  and  all  good  beings  as 
ethical. 


20O  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

§112.  nothing  in  it  inconsistent  with  the  moral  system  or 

man's  freedom. 

Such,  we  believe,  is  the  true  view  of  God's  sovereignty;  and 
there  is  nothing  in  it  arbitrary,  partial,  inconsistent  with  the  moral 
system  constituted  by  the  law  in  all  moral  natures  as  declared  in 
Scripture  and  the  consciousness  of  man.  Nor  is  there  anything  in 
it  irreconcilable  with  man's  freedom.  On  the  one  hand,  according 
to  it,  God  is  absolutely  independent  in  devising,  purposing,  consti- 
tuting, governing,  and  doing,  "  according  to  the  counsel  of  His  own 
will,"  acting  under  His  own  -infinite  knowledge,  benevolence,  and 
wisdom,  all  that  He  ever  has  done  or  will  do,  in  creation,  in  universal 
providence,  in  respect  to  all  His  creatures,  and  in  respect  to  man- 
kind and  every  one  of  them  from  the  first  to  the  last.  On  the  other 
hand,  every  one  of  them  is  perfectly  free,  in  the  sphere  of  his  moral 
action,  in  determining  his  own  choices  and  courses,  right  or  wrong, 
good  or  evil,  under  all  the  motives  before  and  influences  upon  him 
from  God,  his  fellow  men,  angels,  or  devils.  As  before  said,  the 
power  which  the  Holy  Spirit  exerts  upon  any  one  to  bring  him  to 
right  choice  and  action  is  spiritual,  not  physical;  impelling,  not 
compelling;  and  He  exerts  it  with  perfect  regard  for  the  consti- 
tution, faculties,  and  laws  of  the  mind — specially,  if  conceivably 
possible  for  one  power  more  than  the  others,  for  the  will,  the  crown- 
ing one  of  the  nfioral  nature,  the  determiner  of  all  ethical  choices, 
with  which  He  endowed  and  distinguished  mankind  in  the  scale  of 
being.  He  never  invades,  subverts,  supplants,  impairs,  nor  dispenses 
with  the  necessity  of  each  one's  exercising  for  himself  this  wondrous, 
mysterious,  august  power  of  his  nature.  The  Spirit's  operation  on 
the  mind  is  to  quicken  its  intelligence,  sensibility,  and  conscience 
out  of  their  deadness  respecting  moral  and  religious  truth  and  its 
applications  to  the  person's  self,  to  perceive,  feel,  and  realize  it  with 
solemn  convictions  of  sin,  guilt,  danger,  duty,  and  need  of  Divine 
mercy  and  gracious  help  to  restore  him  to  God,  and  thus  to  bring 
him  to  yield  himself  to  God  in  thorough  repentance  and  faith  as  He 
is  made  known  to  him.  If  one  yields  and  another  does  not,  the 
action  of  each  is  perfectly  consistent  with  it,  because  it  in  no  sense 
interferes  with  the  free  action  of  his  will  under  or  against  it.  How, 
then,  can  there  be  even  a  shadow  of  inconsistency  or  irreconcil- 
ability between  God's  sovereignty  in  the  Spirit's  agency  and  man's 
freedom?  Never  was  there  a  more  perfect  consistency  between  two 
correlated  things;  and,  if  men  will  only  cast  to  the  winds  the  assump- 
tion of  an  election  for  reasons  outside  of,  and  antecedent  in  the 


GOD  S  FOREKNOWLEDGE.  201 

order  of  things  to,  those  consisting  in  the  effects  which  God  foreknew 
He  could  secure  by  the  redemptive  measure,  and  for  which  He 
planned  and  adopted  it,  and  with  this  its  logical  child,  that  the  Spirit's 
efficiency  is  limited  and  guided  and  designedly  effectual  by  that  elec- 
tion only  in  the  case  of  those  who  are  its  objects,  and  not  by  the 
plan  and  nature  of  that  measure,  including  His  agency,  as  a  designed 
provision  for  all  alike  as  sinners,  who  must,  by  necessity  of  nature, 
determine  their  own  action  under  it  in  yielding  to  or  resisting  Him 
acting  according  to  it,  we  shall  no  more  be  told  that  "all  attempts 
to  bridge  over  the  gulf  between  the  two  [God's  sovereignty  and 
man's  freedom]  are  futile  in  the  present  imperfect  condition  of 
man."  *  There  never  was  nor  can  be  any  gulf  between  them  to  be 
bridged  over,  even  in  the  view  of  election  we  are  opposing,  if  we 
truly  believe  in  both  and  in  their  consequent  relations  to  each  other. 
God  never  does  men's  willing  and  doing  any  more  when  they  yield 
to  Him  than  when  they  do  not;  but,  as  Paul  puts  it,  "He  works  in 
them /(?  the  willing  and  the  doing"  (Phil.  2:13).  His  working  in 
them  precedes  theirs  and  is  constantly  completed  at  the  line  where 
their  willing  and  doing  under  it  is  secured,  or  where  the  zvill  not  of 
resisters  becomes  set.  Their  freedom  of  will  is  the  shore-bound 
over  which  the  tides  and  billows  of  His  influence  never  break,  and 
by  which  they  are  constantly  stayed  in  the  case  alike  of  both  them 
that  are  saved  and  them  that  are  lost.  How,  then,  can  there  pos- 
sibly be  any  gulf  of  inconsistency  or  irreconcilability  between  His 
sovereign  working  in  either  case  and  their  willing  and  doing  under  it 
in  their  freedom?  To  us,  it  is  pure  nonsense  to  suppose  there  is 
any,  and  no  less  to  keep  asserting  that  the  origin  of  sin  is  an  insol- 
uble mystery.  There  is  no  more  mystery  about  it  than  about  the 
origin  of  obedience. 

S113  god's  foreknowledge  not  identical  with  his  election 

AND    PREDESTINATION. 

Despite  all  the  efforts  which  have  been  made  to  establish  the 
identity  of  God's  foreknowledge  of  those  He  will  save  and  His  elec- 
tion of  them,  we  maintain  that  there  is  an  intrinsic  distinction 
between  them,  as  shown  in  I.  Pet.  1:2,  just  as  there  is  a  distinction 
between  it  and  predestination  or  foreordination  as  shown  in  Rom. 
8:29,  and  elsewhere;  for  it  would  be  idle  to  say,  "elect  according  to 
the  election  of  God."     We  do  not  believe  that  either  the  verb,  to 


*)  See  note  at  foot  of  p.  278  of  Lange's  Com.  on  Romans — Quotation  from 
Alford. 


202  GOD,  CHRIS 'J ;  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN. 

fflrckno7ii,  or  the  nonn,  forekfioivkdge,  ever  means  in  Scripture,  when 
ascribed  to  God,  either  election  or  predestination  [foreordination], 
or  otherwise  than  as  it  relates  to  either  of  them.  Whatever  they 
may  imply  respecting  these,  they  always,  when  predicated  of  God, 
properly  signify  His  omniscience  in  relation  to  their  object  or 
objects,  as  the  basis *of  these  acts  of  His  will.  His  omniscience  is, 
in  no  sense,  voluntary,  being  a  natural  attribute,  while  both  these 
acts  are  purely  so;  and,  without  it,  as,  in  the  order  of  things,  their 
basis,  they  would  be  impossible.  Hence,  when  either  of  these  vol- 
untary acts  is  involved  by  implication  of  relation  in  the  meaning  of 
this  verb  or  noun,  it  is  so  only  as  it  is  based  on  this.  How  could  it 
be  otherwise?  Both  God's  love  which  prompted  them  and  His 
efficiency  to  execute  them  would  be  blind  and  incapable  of  operat- 
ing for  any  end  without  infinite  wisdom  to  guide  or  direct  them; 
and  this  wisdom  would  be  impossible  without  the  basis  and  essential 
constituent  of  His  natural  attribute  of  omniscience.  No  wisdom  is 
possible  to  God  or  man,  except  on  the  basis  of  knowledge,  which 
must  be  antecedent  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  It  was  necessary, 
therefore,  that  God's  omniscience  should  be  clearly  marked  as  the 
eternal,  changeless  basis  of  all  His  plans  and  acts  of  creation  and 
redemption,  of  their  effects,  and  of  His  perfect  wisdom  in  them  all. 
Hence,  to  suppose  that  election  and  predestination  are  antecedent 
in  order  to  foreknowledge,  or  that  this  is  based  on  either  of  them, 
is  intrinsically  absurd;  and  it  is  so,  not  only  for  the  reason  stated, 
but  because  His  foreknowledge  of  all  the  results  of  His  plans  of  both 
was  as  perfect  before  as  after  He  adopted  them;  and  He  adopted 
them  on  account  of  that  knowledge.  It  did  not,  therefore,  depend 
on,  but  was  the  ground  condition  and  reason  for  His  adopting  them, 
so  that  to  make  it  depend  on  either  of  them  is  an  impossible  reversal 
against  the  whole  nature  of  the  case.  An  election  not  based  on 
foreknowledge  would  necessarily  be  one  without  any  wisdom,  reason, 
or  proper  end;  and  the  conception  of  such  a  transposition  is  one  of 
confusion,  and  can  produce  nothing  but  confusion. 

§114.    MEANING  OF  HIS    FOREKNOWING    THOSE    HE    ELECTED    AND  PRE- 
DESTINATED. 

The  first  question,  then,  to  be  considered  here  is,  what  are  we 
to  understand  by  God's  foreknowledge  of  those  whom,  on  the  basis 
of  it,  He  elected  and  predestinated  or  foreordained  to  the  ends  of 
both  these  acts  ?  Plainly,  it  was  a  foreknowledge  of  them  as  in 
some  peculiar  sense  different  from  the  rest  of  mankind;  and  there- 


GOD'S  FOREKNOWLEDGE.  203 

fore  it  was  not  of  them  as  moral  beings,  nor  as  sinners,  nor  as  dif- 
ferently related  as  sinners  to  Himself,  His  holy  universe  and  His 
moral  system  in  either  of  these  respects  from  the  rest.     Nor  was  it 
of  them  as  elected;  for  they  were  "elected  according  to  the  fore- 
knowledge of  God;"  and  besides,  election  is  nothing  peculiar  in 
them,  but  is  God's  act  totvards  them   as  foreknown   by  Him  to  be 
somehow  peculiarized  by  something  pleasing  to  Him;  for  His  elec- 
tion of  them  included  and  proceeded  from  complacent  love  for 
them  as  future  possessors  of  that  peculiarity.     Nor  was  it  of  them 
as  predestinated;  for  what  is  true  of  them  as  elected  is  equally  so  of 
them  as  predestinated.     Nor  was  it  of  them  as  ever  to  become  mor- 
rally  prepared  for  forgiveness  and  salvation  in  and  of  themselves, 
without  the  gracious  motives  and  influences  of  the  redemptive  pro- 
vision, or  to  have  a  shadow  of  merit  or  desert  of  the  Divine  favor, 
whatever  they  would  do  or  become  of  themselves,  or  not  to  have  an 
everlasting  desert  of  the  opposite.     Nor  was  it  of  them  as  earning  or 
deserving  forgiveness   and  salvation  by  any  works  without  faith  or 
with  it;  for  this  would  make  these  due  to  them  by  justice,  instead  of 
being  purely  gifts  of  grace.     Nor  was  it  of  them  as  constituted  with 
an  indoles,  a  natural  qiiality  or  disposition,  different  from  and  better 
than  that  of  others;*  for,  to  constitute  them  so  would  be  a  partin', 
arbitrary  work  of  physical  omnipotence  beyond  the  natural  laws  of 
propagation,  in  conflict  with  the  nature  of  the  case  which  we  have 
shown,  with  the  redemptive  system   correlated   to  it,  and  with  the 
nature  of  mercy,  because,  if  omnipotence  could  be  thus  exerted  for 
them,  there  is  no  conceivable  reason,  not  arbitrary,  why  it  could  not 
be  equally  for  all,  to  secure  the  salvation  of  all.     Besides,  it  often 
occurs  that  the  same  parents,  pious  or  wicked,  have  offspring  of  very 
different  dispositions,  that  of  one  very  bad,  even  of  the  worst,  that 
of  another  very  good,  or  even  of  the  best;  and  yet  often  the  former 
are,  and  the  latter  are  not  converted.     Nor  was  it  of  them  as  sus- 
taining any  of  the  common  relations  of  mankind  to  each  other,  the 
intelligent  universe,  and  God.     Nor,  in  short,  was  it  of  them  in  any 
respect  outside  of  the  foreseen  rectified  character,  to  which  He  could' 
bring  them,  which  distinguishes  them  from  all  foreseen  as  incorrigi- 
ble in  sin,  which  constitutes  their  special  relations  to  others,  to  the 
intelligent  universe,  and  to  God,  and  which  He  foreknew  He  could, 
by  adopting  and  executing  the  plan   of  redemption,  consistently 
bring  them  to  begin  and  continue  freely  to  the  end  of  their  proba- 
tion.    We  speak  humanly  when  we  say  He  formed  this  plan;  lor  it« 

(*)  Lange's  Com.  on  Rom.  9:12,  13,  [jp.  311  313. 


204  ^<^A  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN; 

and  all  its  results  must  have  been  to  Him  an  immediate  intuition,  as 
that  of  creation  must  also  have  been;  and  it  was  for  the  sake  of  its 
beneficent  results  to  men,  the  intelligent  universe,  and  Himself  con- 
summately, that  He,  "by  the  counsel  of  His  own  will,"  adopted  it, 
just  as  it  was  for  the  sake  of  all  the  results  of  that  of  creation,  that 
He  adopted  it.  He  thus  saw  that  plan  and  its  execution  as  related 
to  mankind  as  a  provision  of  His  mercy  for  them  all  alike  as  sinners; 
He  saw  all  the  results  of  its  execution  in  the  case  of  each  and  all  of 
them;  and  He  saw  that  doing  all  He  could  by  it,  and  therefore 
wisely  and  benevolently,  for  all  and  each,  He  could  bring  only  a 
part  of  them  to  yield  to  Him  in  their  freedom,  while  the  rest,  in 
their  freedom,  would  not,  but  would  persist  in  sin;  and  His  previ- 
sion of  each  of  the  former  part  must  have  been  attended  with  cofn- 
placency  to  them,  and  of  each  of  the  oth.er  part  with  displacency  to 
them  for  their  foreseen  action.  This  prevision  was  in  no  sense  vol- 
untary, but  the  necessary  action  ot  His  natural  attribute  of  omnis- 
cience; but  it  was  antecedent  to,  and  furnished  the  reasons  for,  His 
redemptive  purpose,  election,  and  predestination,  which  were  all 
acts  of  His  will. 

§  115.    WHAT  SCRIPTURE  TEACHES    CONCERNING    GOD'S    ETERNAL    PUR- 
POSE, ELECTION,  AND    PREDESTINATION. 

Is  this  showing  a  true  exhibition  of  what  Scripture  declares 
concerning  Qo^?>  purpose,  election,  2iXiA  predestination,  and  their  rela- 
tions to  His  foreknowledge  and  to  each  other?  We  must  not  en- 
tangle ourselves  with  difficulties  of  our  own  making  by  trying  to 
think  of  these  acts  of  God  as  done  in  chronological  succession,  but 
must  regard  them  as  eternally  co-existent  and  connected  in  His 
infinite  Mind  and  plan  in  a  necessary  order  of  relation.  According 
to  Scripture,  the  first  of  them,  in  this  order,  is  His  "  eternal  purpose, 
which  He  purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord."*  This  purpose  was 
His  purely  self-moved,  self-determined  adoption  of  the  plan  of 
redemption,  which,  in  His  omniscient  and  benevolent  wisdom,  He 
saw  was  the  best  possible.  It  related  to  mankind  generally,  to  those 
of  them  He  saw  He  could  bring  to  faith  and  salvation  specially,  to 
all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  which  He  saw  He  could  harmonize 
in  Christ,f  and  to  each  Person  in  the  Godhead.  As  it  related  to 
those  foreknown  as  renewed  by  the  execution  of  this  plan,  it  involved 
both  their  election  and  their  predestination  to  the  special  ends  of 

(*)  Eph.  3:11.     See,  also,  Eph.  1:9,  11;  Rom.  8:28;  9:11;  II.  Tim.  1:9. 
If)  Eph.  1:9,  10;  Col.  1:19,  20. 


GOD'S  FOREKNOWLEDGE. 


205 


both  these  acts.  It  thus  comprehended  all  He  has  done  and  will  do 
forever  in  executing  it  and  securing  all  its  results  to  man,  the  whole 
intelligent  universe,  and  Himself  to  endless  ages. 

The  second  in  the  oider  jf  these  acts  of  God,  which  was  in- 
volved in  His  purpose,  was  H'.s  e^^-tion  of  each  of  those  whom  He 
foreknew,  as  explained.  It  'A-as  His  choice  of  each  of  them  out  of 
mankind  to  be  an  object  of  its  ends,  not  from  any  arbitrary  par- 
tiality, but  because  He  foreknew  that,  while  doing  all  He  consist- 
ently could,  according  to  the  universal  moral  system,  to  bring  all 
others  to  the  same  ends,  who  nevertheless  would  not,  in  their  free- 
dom, yield  to  be  brought.  He  could  consistently  bring  these  to 
yield,  in  their  freedom,  to  be  brought  to  those  ends.  It  was  essen- 
tially His  determinatior  so  to  bring  them  in  their  times.  Scripture 
contains  the  following  statements  respecting  it:  I.  Pet.  1:2.  "Elect 
according  to  the  foreknovlodge  of  God  the  Father,  through  (en) 
santification  of  the  Spirit,  unto  obedience  and  sprinkling  of  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ."  Eph  1:4.  "According  as  He  hath  chosen 
us  in  Him  before  the  founda'tion  of  the  world,  that  we  should  be 
holy  and  without  blame  before  Him."  II.  Thess.  2:13.  "For  that 
God  hath  from  the  beginning  clio.en  you  to  salvation  in  sanctifica- 
tion  of  the  Spirit  and  belief  [iciill]  of  the  truth."  It  is  spoken  of 
in  many  other  places,  but  these  are  the  only  direct  statements  of 
what  it  consisted  in.  The  election  of  Jacob  (Rom.  9:11),  was 
to  none  of  the  ends  stated  in  these  passages,  but  was  of  him  to  be 
the  progenitor  of  the  theocratic  people,  and  of  them  in  him  to  be 
such.*  According  to  these,  election  was  an  act  of  the  Father.  He 
chose  those  intended  in  Christ,  who,  in  His  Divine-Human  Person, 
and  in  all  He  did  and  suffered  on  earth  and  continues  to  do  in 
heaven  as  the  one  Mediator  between  God  and  men,  contains  all  the 
grounds  for  the  choice  and  all  the  potencies  which  He  foreknew 
would  secure  its  results  in  their  cases;  so  that  He  did  not  choose 
them  for  any  reasons  outside  of  Him  and  of  the  redemptive  meas- 
ure, which  was  to  be  executed  in,  by  and  through  Him.  He  chose 
them  out  (eklego)  for  Himself  from  the  rest  of  mankind,  for  the 
peculiar  reason  in  them  already  stated,  for  which  He  would,  with 
equal  readiness  and  pleasure,  have  chosen  all  the  rest,  if  He 
had  foreseen  it  in  them.  Election  thus  differs  from  God's  redemp- 
tive purpose,  as  a  special  under  a  whole,  its  aim  being  vastly 
restricted  compared  with  that  of  His  purpose,  being  confined  to  its 
objects  alone.     It:  was  an   "  election  of  grace  "  to   them,  because 

(*)  Gen.  25:22,  23;  Mai.  1:2,  3. 


2o6  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

they  would  not  and  could  not  have  a  shadow  of  merit  or  desert  of 
it,  but  would  have  exactly  the  contrary;  and  He  was  moved  to  it, 
not  merely  by  His  pity  and  benevolence  in  themselves  towards  them 
(for  He  had  these  equally  towards  all),  but  by  His  foreknowledge 
of  them  as  brought  to  become  saints  and  thus  objects  of  His  ap- 
proval and  complacency,  as  no  others  foreknown  as  incorrigible  in 
sin  ever  could  be,  and  by  all  the  foreseen  everlasting  results  of  good 
to  them,  the  intelligent  universe,  and  consummately  to  Himself. 
According  to  the  first  and  third  of  the  passages  quoted  above,  the 
election  was  to  be  made  effectual  to  its  objects  (en)  /;/,  by,  or  under 
the  poiver  ^,  the  Spirit — "in  sanctification  of  the  Spirit."  It  was 
by  His  agency  alone  that  the  result  would  in  every  case  be  secured. 
But,  in  the  third  of  these  passages,  we  are  told  that  those  elected 
were  chosen,  not  only  in  santification  of  the  Spirit,  but  also  "  in 
faith  of  the  truth,"  that  is,  in  the  faith  required  in  the  Gospel, 
which,  in  both  the  old  version  and  the  new,  is  wrongly  translated 
belief;  and  this  teaches  that  their  foreseen  action,  not  in  works,  but 
in  yielding  to  the  Spirit  in  faith,  was  also  a  reason  in  God's  mind  for 
electing  them;  for  faith  is  the  antithesis  of  works,  the  one  only  pos- 
sible way  of  receiving,  taking,  appropriating  grace  and  salvation. 
The  same  is  implied  in  both  the  other  passages,  because  both  obe- 
dience and  being  holy  and  blameless  are  their  own  action  in  and 
from  faith.  But  it  is  thoroughly  important  to  notice  the  ends  of 
their  election  stated  in  these  passages.  In  the  first  of  them,  there 
are  ttvo,  "  obedience  and  sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ," 
that  is,  justification;  in  the  second,  there  is  one,  "  blameless  holi- 
ness," or  sanctification,  which  implies  both  the  preceding;  in  the 
third,  it  is  "  salvation,"  which  implies  them  all.  Nowhere  are  any 
other  e/ids  ascribed  to  it;  and  these  perfectly  accord  with  our  Lord's 
teachings  concerning  it.  John  6:37.  "All  that  the  Father  giveth 
me,  shall  con/e  to  me;  and  him  that  cometh  to  me,  I  will  in  no  wise 
cast  out."*  The  action  of  their  will  in  exercising  faith  under  the 
influence  of  the  Spirit  is  thus  a  declared  foreseen  condition  of  and 
reason  for  it. 

The  third  in  order  of  these  acts  of  God  \'s,  predestination  or  fore- 
ordination.  It  consists  in  His  determining  or  ordaining  beforehand, 
that  is,  in  His  adoption  of  His  plan  of  the  redemptive  measure,  to 
do  with  and  for  each  of  the  elect,  but  for  no  others,  all  that  the  pas- 
sages teaching  it  declare,  which  are  the  following:  Rom.  8:29,  30. 
"For  whom  He  foreknew,  He  also  predestinated  to  be  conformed 
(*)  See  vs.  38-40;  44,  45;  10:27-29;   17:2,  6-1 1,  24. 


cons  FOREKNOWLEDGE.  207 

to  the  image  of  His  Son,  that  He  might  be  the  first-born  among 
many  brethren:  and  whom  He  predestinated  them  He  also  called." 
Eph.  1:5.  "In  love  having  predestinated  us  into  the  adoption  of 
children  through  Jesus  Christ  unto  Himself  according  to  the  good- 
pleasure  [the  en  must  include  benevolence]  of  His  will,  to  the  praise 
of  the  glory  of  His  grace."  Eph.  i:ii.  "In  whom  also  we  were 
made  a  heritage,  having  been  predestinated  according  to  the  pur- 
pose of  Him  who  worketh  all  things  after  the  counsel  of  His  will; 
to  the  end  that  we  should  be  unto  the  praise  of  His  glory."  See  vs. 
13,  14.  Looking  at  these  passages,  we  note  the  following  things: 
I.  Those  who  are  the  objects  of  predestination  or  foreordination 
are  the  same  persons  who  are  the  objects  of  election.  It  is  entirely 
confined  to  them.  2.  The  execution  of  election  involves  the  volun- 
tary action  of  its  objects  under  the  agency  of  the  Spirit  for  the  ful- 
fillment of  all  its  ends,  while  predestination  is  totally  executed  by 
God  Himself,  not  only  without  any  agency  of  its  objects,  but  with- 
out any  distinct  agency  of  the  Spirit.  It  is  strictly  His  own  act  or 
acts,  destining  or  ordaining  them  to  its  ends.  3.  Its  ends  to  them 
are  entirely  different  from,  instead  of  being  included  in,  those  ot 
election;  and,  in  designed  order,  they  are  plainly  after  and  addi- 
tional or  supplemental  to  them,  as  it  is  to  election.  Their  adoption 
as  sons,  with  its  co-heirship  with  Christ  (Rom.  8:14-17),  is  clearly 
so  to  their  begun  obedience  and  justification,  as  is  their  being  made 
God's  heritage,  and  their  being  conformed  to  the  image  of  Christ. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  predestination  being  first  in  the  order  of  God's 
plan  of  redemption,  and  the  foundation  of  all  His  other  acts  in  it, 
it  is  last  in  it,  its  close  and  crown;  and,  instead  of  its  relating  to 
all  mankind  and  angels  as  its  objects,  it  relates  only  and  exclusively 
to  those  who  are  the  objects  of  the  election,  and  to  them  only  as 
additional  to  it,  and  as  supplementing  its  ends  with  its  own.  There 
is  no  possible  place  in  or  under  that  plan  for  the  horrible,  ogreish 
metamorphosis  of  it  by  Augustine;  and  well  may  all  believers  rejoice 
that  they  are  the  objects  of  such  an  infallible  destination.  Beyond 
the  ends  of  predestination,  already  noticed,  which  pertain  to  its 
objects,  it  had  a  supreme,  ultimate  end,  which  pertained  to  God 
Himself,  and  is  declared  with  variations  three  times  over  in  Eph. 
1:6,  12,  14,  at  the  close  of  three  circles  of  thought  respecting  it — 
"unto  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  His  grace" — "  that  we  should  be 
to  the  praise  of  His  glory  " — "  unto  the  praise  of  His  glory."  As 
His  predestination  of  its  objects  to  the  stupendous  ends  stated,  over 
and  above  those  of  election  which  are  fulfilled  in  their  salvation, 


2o8  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLA^T. 

was,  and  His  execution  of  them  would  be,  totally  "  according  to  the 
good-pleasure  of  His  will"  and  "the  purpose  of  Him  who  worketh 
all  things  after  the  counsel  of  His  own  will,"  and  so  would  be  ineffa- 
ble grace  to  them  added  to  all  that  of  their  salvation  in  itself,  there 
would  be  infinite  glory  in  that  grace,  of  which  they  would  be  eternal 
manifestations  and  monuments,  which  would  not  only  deserve  and 
draw  forth  their  own  utmost  praise,  but  that  of  all  holy  beings  for- 
ever. 

§  Il6.    EXAMINATION  OF  ROM.  8:27-30  AND  EPH.   1:4-14. 

In  order  to  show  that  this  view  of  the  relations  of  election  and 
predestination  is  the  correct  one,  it  is  necessary  to  ascertain  the 
true  meaning  and  relations  of  the  passages  in  Rom.  8:28-30  and 
Eph.  1:4-14.  The  former  is  less  complete  than  the  latter,  and  does 
not,  as  Lange  supposes  in  his  Commentary,  in  loco,  "contain  the 
whole  Divine  plan  of  salvation  from  the  first  foundation  to  the  ulti- 
mate object,"  as  its  scope  is  restricted  by  the  subject  and  aim  of  the 
entire  context."  The  passages  together  give  the  whole  plan.  In 
Rom.  8:29,  election  is  not  mentioned  before  predestination  as  it  is 
in  Eph.  1:4,  while  foreknowledge  is  mentioned  in  that  passage,  but 
not  in  this.  The  reason  for  the  omission  in  either  case  is  not  that 
election  and  foreknowledge  are  identical  or  include  each  other,  as 
Lange  and  others  suppose;*  for  the  former  is,  and  the  latter  is  not, 
an  act  of  the  Divine  will,  and  they  a*re  clearly  distinguished  in  I. 
Pet.  1:2.  The  reason  for  not  mentioning  election  in  Rom.  8:29  is, 
that  predestination  implies  it  as  its  antecedent,  just  as  the  reason 
for  not  mentioning  foreknowledge  in  Eph.  1:4  and  in  II.  Thess.  2:13 
is  that  the  choosing  in  them  implies  it  as  its  necessary  antecedent 
and  basis.  Nothing  is  more  common  than  such  omissions  of  ante- 
cedents, and  assumptions  of  them  as  implied.  Why  should  inter- 
preters, instead  of  recognizing  them  as  implied,  confound  things 
radically  different  in  nature,  especially  when,  as  in  this  case,  elec- 
tion would  have  "been  impossible  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  except 
on  the  pre-existent  basis  of  foreknowledge  in  the  proper  sense  ol 
that  much-abused  term  ? 

We  believe  the  following  the  true  view  of  Rom.  8:28-30.  We 
have  already  shown  what,  we  think,  is  meant  by  the  expression,  the 
purpose  of  God;  that  He  must  have  formed  it  on  the  basis  of  His 
infallible  foreknowledge  of  all  its  results  to  men,  to  the  intelligent 


(*)  For  a  specimen  of  strange  logic  as  to  tlieir  identity,  see  Lange's  Cora,  on 
Horn.,  p.  289,  2d  column,  near  bottom.  ^ 


EXAM2NA  TION  OF  ROM.  AND  EPff.  209 

universe,  and  to  Himself;  that  it  was  for  the  sake  of  the  infinite 
whole  of  those  beneficent  results  that,  according  to  His  good- 
pleasure  and  the  counsel  of  His  own  will,  He  formed  and  adopted 
't;  and  that,  as  it  related  to  those  of  mankind  whom  He  foreknew 
as  brought  by  Him,  working  fully  within  its  lines,  to  come  to  Him 
in  obedience,  it  included  His  two  special,  subordinate  acts  respect- 
ing them,  that  of  His  election  of  them  to  its  ends,  and  that  of  His 
predestination  of  them  to  its  ends.  This  is  its  evident  meaning  in 
Rom.  8:28,  and  in  Eph.  i;9,  11;  3:11;  II.  Tim.  1:9.  Rom.  8:29,  30, 
is  simply  an  expanded  statement  of  subordinate  acts  of  God  in- 
volved in  that  purpose  respecting  those  to  whom  it  related,  by  which 
He  designed  to  effect  it.  Election  is  not  mentioned  among  them, 
but  verse  33  shows  it  was  implied.  The  opening  clause  of  this 
statement  "whom  He  foreknew,"  shows  that  the  purpose  itself  and 
all  these  subordinate  acts,  election,  and  predestination  included, 
were  according  to  His  foreknowledge,  just  as  Peter's  statement, 
"elect  according  to  the  foreknowledge  of  God  the  Father"  shows 
that  His  election  was  based  on  it,  and  as,  in  Eph.  i:ii,  we  are  told 
that  believers  "  were  predestinated  according  to  God's  purpose." 
Besides,  Eph.  1:9,  10,  shows  that  His  purpose  is  vastly- wider  in  its 
scope  than  His  predestination.  It  is  impossible  to  adjust  all  these 
teachings  to  the  notion  that,  in  the  order  of  relation,  predestination, 
instead  of  being  after  election  and  the  crowning  act  of  the  redemp- 
tive plan,  respecting  the  redeemed,  was  either  be/ore,  or  identical 
with,  God's  purpose,  and  so  the  foundation  of  that  plan,  and  even 
of  His  foreknowledge — especially  when  its  specified  ends  are  recog- 
nized in  connection  with  those  of  election,  while  no  special  ends 
are  assigned  to  His  purpose,  and  both  election  and  predestination 
are  constantly  declared  to  be  according  to  it  and  His  foreknowl- 
edge. 

The  first  Chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  Ephesians,  written  by  the 
Aposc'e  about  three  years  later  than  that  to  the  Romans,  contains 
the  fullest  and  the  only  distinctly  designed  statement  in  all  Scrip- 
ture of  these  eternal  acts  of  God;  and  all  his  other  statements  of 
them,  being  incidental,  should  be  construed  in  harmony  with  this. 
In  verse  3,  he  pronounces  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  blessed,  specially  for  having  blessed  believers  with  all  spiritual 
blessings  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ,  thus  ascribing  all  these  acts 
and  their  results  to  believers  to  Him.  In  verse  4,  he  ascribes  to 
Him  their  election,  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  to  the  end 
that  they  should  be  holy  and  blameless  before  Him;  and  his  thus 


2IO  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN". 

placing  it  before  predestination  shows  that,  in  order,  it  is  before  it. 
Then  follow,  in  verses  5-14,  two  distinct  statements  concerning  pre- 
destination and  its  ends  to  them,  with  three  of  its  ulterior  ends  to 
Himself.  He  states  in  verse  5,  that  God  predestinated  them  to  the 
end  stated  in  it  "according  to  the  good-pleasure  of  His  will,"  and 
in  verse  11,  that  He  did  it  to  the  end  stated  in  it  "  according  to  His 
purpose,  as  He  works  all  things  after  the  counsel  of  His  own  will." 
Verses  9  and  10  show  that  that  purpose  had  a  consummate  end 
vastly  beyond  them,  even  to  summing  up  all  things  in  Christ,  which 
are  in  heaven  as  well  as  on  earth.  That  the  participle,  "  having 
predestinated,"  at  the  beginning  of  verse  5,  is  only  expressive  of 
the  co-existence  of  the  act  with  that  of  election  in  the  eternal  pur- 
pose, is  certified,  not  only  by  the  fact  that  election  is  placed  first  in 
the  statement,  but  by  the  fact  that  its  ends  are  plainly  stated  as  suc- 
cessive and  additional  to  those  of  election,  stated  in  verse  4,  in  II. 
Thess.  2:13,  and  in  I.  Pet.  1:2;  by  the  fact,  before  shown  and  now 
certified  anew,  that  it  is  neither  prior  to  nor  identical  with  God's 
purpose,  otherwise  than  both  election  and  it  are  as  involved  in  it; 
and  by  the  fact  that  its  ends  are  done  for  its  objects  by  God  Him- 
self without  any  condition  or  action  of  theirs,  while  those  of  elec- 
tion are  not.  To  make  this  last  point  manifest,  we  here  repeat  a 
statement  of  the  ends  of  each.  Those  of  election  are  "  through 
faith  of  the  truth,''  as  well  as  "  sanctification  of  the  Spirit"  (II. 
Thess.  2:13);  "to  obedience,"  "to  justification"  conditioned  on  it 
(I.  Pet.  1:2);  to  "  sanctification  "  (Eph.  1:4);  and  "  to  salvation"  (II. 
Thess.  2:13),  which  is  everywhere  in  the  Gospel  conditioned  on 
faith.  Salvation,  in  itself,  does  not  imply  any  of  the  ends  of  pre- 
destination, but  is,  as  the  term  signifies,  rescue  from  sin  and  its  nat- 
ural and  retributive  consequences  to  the  full  degree  of  everlasting 
confirmation  in  perfect  holiness  and  blessedness.  This  and  all  it 
implies  could  certainly  have  been  accomplished  without  any  of  the 
ends  of  predestination,  which  are  these:  i.  The  adoption  of  its  ob- 
jects by  the  Father  as  sons  to  Himself  through  Jesus  Christ,  which 
involves  His  making  them  His  heirs  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ  to 
all  that  He  inherits  (Rom.  8:15-17.  i.  His  making  them  His  herit- 
age in  Christ  (Eph.  i:ii).  3.  Conformity  to  the  image  of  His  Son 
[that  is,  in  condition]  that  He  might  be  the  first-born  among  many 
brethren  (Rom.  8:29).  From  this  showing,  it  is  perfectly  plain  that 
these  ends  neither  precede  nor  are  identical  with,  but  succeed  and 
are  additional  to,  those  of  election.  Overlooking  what  is  thus 
revealed  concerning  each  oi  these  eternal  acts  of  God  and  its  ends, 


PURPOSE  AND  election:  211 

and  making  it  mean  what  it  never  does  in  all  the  Scriptures,  have 
caused  measureless  mischief  in  the  Church  and  world. 

§  117.    THE  PURPOSE  AND  ELECTION  IN  ROM.  9:11  MEAN  ENTIRELY  DIF- 
FERENT THINGS  FROM   THOSE  WE  ARE  CONSIDERING. 

There  is  a  seeming  discrepancy  between  the  words  in  Rom. 
9:11,  "  that  the  purpose  of  God  according  to  election  might  stand," 
and  what  we  have  shown  concerning  election  and  its  ends,  which 
we  must  notice.  Our  first  remark  is,  that  this  passage  must  be  in- 
terpreted consistently  with  those  we  have  considered,  both  accord- 
ing to  the  rule  that  the  more  obscure  must  be  interpreted  by  the 
less  so  or  the  clear,  and  to  the  fact  that,  in  those,  the  fundamental 
ends  of  election  are  stated,  while  in  this  neither  of  them  is.  We 
have  seen  that,  according  to  Rom.  8:28,  29,  33;  Eph.  1:9-11;  3:11; 
II.  Tim.  1:9;  and  I.  Pet.  1:2,  the  first  and  fundamental  act  of  God 
in  the  whole  redemptive  measure  was  His  purpose  to  execute  it,  and 
that  it  involved  the  two  subordinate  acts,  (x)  of  election,  and  (2)  of 
predestination.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that,  in  the  clause,  "  that  the 
purpose  of  God  according  to  election  might  stand,"  each  of  the 
vfords  purpose  and  election  must  have  a  different  meaning  from  what 
it  has  in  any  of  these  other  harmonious  passages.  In  Rom.  9:1-5, 
the  Apostle  expresses  his  profound  solicitude  for  the  salvation  of 
the  Jews,  as  his  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh,  to  whom  pertained 
all  the  advantages  recounted  in  verses  4,  5.  But,  to  head  off  their 
assumption,  that  they  would  be  saved  because  they  were  of  the  seed 
of  Abraham,  or  the  promises  of  God  to  him  for  his  seed  would  be 
nullified,  he  says  in  verse  6 — "  Not  as  though  the  word  of  God 
hath  come  to  naught;  "  and  in  verses  7-13,  he  refutes  their  assump 
tion  by  showing  that  God  had  acted  on  a  different  principle  in 
relation  to  the  immediate  "seed"  of  even  Abraham  and  Isaac  them- 
selves. In  verse  7,  he  begins  with  two  discriminating  affirmations 
— (i)  that  "they  are  not  all  Israel  which  are  [descendants]  of 
Israel  "  or  Jacob,  which  is  a  general  one  directly  applying  to  them, 
and  (2)  that  "  neither,  because  they  are  Abraham's  seed,  are  they  all 
children"  [in  the  sense  of  the  promise];  because,  in  Gen.  21:12, 
God,  by  saying  to  Abraham,  ''  In  Isaac  shall  thy  seed  be  called," 
had  confined  the  special  seed  which  He  had  covenanted  and  prom- 
ised to  give  him  to  Isaac  and  his  descendants  (Gen.  17:7).  Putting 
this  in  distinct  form,  he  says  in  verse  8,  "  That  is,  it  is  not  the  chil- 
dren of  the  flesh  that  are  children  of  God;  but  the  children  of  the 
promise  are  reckoned  for  a  seed."     The  expression,  "  children  of 


212  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN: 

God,"  in  the  first  clause,  does  not  mean  those  really  such  in  charac- 
ter, but,  as  the  last  clause  shows,  the  special  "  seed  "  or  line  of  pos- 
terity promised  by  God  to  Abraham,  only  a  part  of  which  ever 
became  His  real  children.  In  verse  9,  he  quotes  this  promise  from 
Gen.  18:10,  14.  In  verses  10-13,  ^6  adduces  the  more  striking  case 
of  the  sons  and  posterity  of  Isaac,  as  recorded  in  Gen.  25:21-23, 
and  adds  a  quotation  from  Mai.  1:2,  3.  The  case  was,  that,  in  an- 
swer to  Isaac's  prayer,  his  barren  wife  conceived.  Having  remark- 
able sensations,  the  cause  of  which  she  did  not  understand,  she 
inquired  of  Jehovah  concerning  them,  and  He  gave  her  this  answer 
— "  Two  nations  are  in  thy  womb,  and  two  vianner  of  people  shall  be 
separated  from  thy  bowels;  and  the  one  people  shall  be  stronger  than 
the  other  people;  and  the  elder  shall  serve  the  younger."  In  refer- 
ence to  this  answer,  Paul,  in  Rom.  9:11,  says — "For  the  children 
being  not  yet  born,  neither  having  done  anything  good  or  bad,  that 
the  purpose  of  God  according  to  election  might  stand,  not  of  works, 
but  of  Him  that  calleth;  it  was  said  unto  her,  the  elder  shall  serve 
the  younger.     As  it  is  written,  Jacob  I  loved,  but  Esau  I  hated." 

Now,  considering  the  passages  together,  that  in  Gen.  and  this 
in  Rom.,  we  seek  the  true  meaning  of  the  latter,  i.  In  God's  answer 
to  Rebekah,  neither  of  the  twins  is  spoken  of  as  an  individual,  but 
each  only  as  being  in  effect  a  whole  nation  or  people  in  her,  in 
which  he  is  included  as  its  progenitor.  Nor  are  any  in  it  spoken  of 
as  individuals.  2.  The  purpose  of  God  respecting  them,  stated  to 
her  in  His  answer,  is  that  quoted  by  Paul  in  Rom.  9:12,  "  The  elder 
shall  serve  the  younger."  3.  Paul  states,  verse  ir,  the  obvious  fact, 
that,  as  the  children  were  not  yet  born,  and  had  done  nothing  good 
or  bad,  when  God  declared  this  purpose  concerning  each  of  them  as 
in  germ  a  nation,  it  was  wholly  without  regard  to  works  done  by 
them,  good  or  bad,  or  to  any  moral  deserts  of  theirs,  good  or  ill, 
but  solely  of  Him  that  calleth.  It  is  simply  arbitrary  to  assume  or 
suppose  that  Paul,  in  verse  11,  meant  to  speak  of  the  unborn  twins 
as  individuals,  apart  from  the  nations  to  descend  from  them.  It  is 
so,  because  God  neither  said  nor  meant  that  in  His  answer  to 
Rebekah,  in  Gen.  25:23;  because  he  quotes,  in  verse  12,  the  purpose 
of  God,  there  declared,  respecting  the  "two  nations  in  her  womb," 
including  them  as  their  respective  progenitors;  because  God's  elec- 
tion of  Israel  related  to  them  as  a  nation  or  people,  as  we  shall  see; 
and  because  the  object  of  his  argument  was  to  refute  the  assump- 
tion of  the  Jews,  that  they  would  be  saved,  because  they  were 
descendants  of  Abraham  and  Israel,  or  God's  word  would  come  to 


PURPOSE  AND  election:  213 

naught,  by  confronting  them  with  antagonist  facts  in  the  cases  of 
those  partriarchs  themselves,  and  not  to  prove  or  disprove  that  God 
had  a  "purpose  according  to  election"  to  confer  or  not  to  confer 
eternal  salvation  on  a  single  one  of  them.  4.  The  election,  accord- 
ing to  which  this  purpose  of  God  was,  is  that  stated  in  verse  13, 
"Jacob  I  loved,  but  Esau  I  hated,"  which  is  quoted  from  Mai.  1:2,  3. 
The  whole  connection  there  shows  that,  by  Jacob  and  Esau,  the 
prophet  did  not  mean  those  two  brothers  as  individuals,  but  the 
nations  descended  from  them,  with  them  as  their  progenitors.  Thus 
this  election  and  the  purpose  of  God  according  to  it  related  entirely 
and  only  to  the  "two  nations"  or  "peoples,"  which  God  declared 
to  Rebekah  were  in  her  womb,  as  told  in  Gen.  25:23,  and  not  to  sepa- 
rate individuals  at  all.  5.  Neither  this  purpose  nor  this  election 
was  identical  with  the  purpose  or  the  election  of  the  redemptive 
measure;  for  their  relation  to  each  other  is  in  reversed  order.  That 
purpose  was  not  according  to  election,  and  this  was,  while  that  elec- 
tion was  according  to  that  purpose^  and  this  was  not  according  to 
this  purpose;  and  both  that  purpose  and  that  election  related  to  the 
eternal  salvation  of  men  as  individuals,  while  neither  this  purpose 
nor  this  election  related  either  to  separate  persons  or  to  the  eternal 
salvation  of  any,  but  solely  to  the  two  nations  or  peoples  in  this 
world.  The  fact  that  Esau  never  personally  served  Jacob  as  a  per- 
son, nor  any  of  his  descendants,  proves  that  the  purpose  did  not 
relate  to  them  as  persons,  but  only  to  their  nations,  and  to  these  not 
for  centuries  after  they  lived;  and  as  the  purpose  was  according  to 
the  election,  both  it  and  the  clause  in  Mai.  1:3,  added  to  "Esau  I 
hated,"  prove  that  the  election  was  not  of  Jacob  as  a  person,  apart 
from  his  nation,  but  only  as  included  in  it  as  its  progenitor.  6.  The 
end  or  ends  of  this  election  were  not  identical  with  any  of  the  ends 
of  the  redemptive  election;  but  were  those  of  the  Abrahamic  birth- 
right and  all  that  it  involved  in  this  world — all  the  special  relations 
to  God  and  mankind,  the  advantages  and  prerogatives  by  which 
they  were  constituted  and  characterized  as  God's  chosen,  peculiar 
people,  to  be  in  time  an  organized  theocracy  and  put  in  possession 
of  the  promised  land  of  Canaan,  of  whom  the  great  promised 
"seed"  (Gal.  3:16),  the  Messiah,  was  to  come.  They  included  all 
specified  by  Paul  in  verses  4,  5.  If  these  ends  had  included  eternal 
salvation,  not  one  of  all  the  generations  of  this  nation  would  have 
failed  of  it,  nor  would  one  of  all  those  of  the  nation  of  Esau  have 
attained  it;  but,  if  they  all  pertained  to  this  nation  as  such  in  this 
world,  this  election  neither  secured  this   salvation  to  one  of  them. 


214  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLAN'. 

nor  excepted  Esau  or  any  of  his  descendants  from  it.  As  to  the 
notion  of  Lange  that  this  election,  and  the  redemptive  one  also, 
determined  the  indoles  or  natural  disposition  of  its  objects,*  it  is 
unwarranted  by  Scripture,  arbitrary,  partial,  and  a  mere  invention 
of  its  author.  7.  There  is  this  further  to  be  noticed  of  this  election, 
that,  as  it  was  necessary,  in  order  to  accomplish  the  development 
and  ends  of  the  redemptive  measure  among  mankind,  that  there 
should  be  such  a  chosen,  peculiar,  theocratic  nation;  as  it  was 
necessary  that  this  nation,  as  is  shown  by  God's  whole  course  with 
Abraham  in  calling  him,  covenanting  with  him,  and  giving  him  the 
promises,  should  be  from  him  through  Isaac;  as  the  whole  entail  of 
what  was  to  peculiarize  that  nation  was  pendent  on  the  possession 
of  the  Abrahamic  birthright;  as,  on  account  of  this  whole  chain  of 
facts,  this  birthright  was  not  really  one  of  primogeniture,  but  of 
Divine  dispensation;  and  as,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  it  could  per- 
tain only  to  one  of  Isaac's  two  sons  with  his  nation;  it  is  manifest 
that  God  was  tinder  a  7iecessity  of  His  own  making  to  elect  between 
them  to  which  it  should  pertain,  as  He  had  a  perfect  right  to  do.  8. 
But  why  did  He  elect  Jacob  and  his  nation?  As  the  twins,  seminally 
containing  their  future  twin  nations,  were  yet  unborn  and  without 
moral  action  and  desert,  good  or  bad,  when  the  election  was  made, 
neither  was  the  election  of  the  younger  nor  the  rejection  of  the 
elder  done  as  deserved  by  the  works  of  either  of  them,  but  entirely 
of  God's  own  will,  who  called  the  younger.  But  this  is  neither  say- 
ing nor  implying  that  God's  reasons  for  this  election  of  the  younger 
were  any  other  than  the  effects  He  foresaw  He  could  secure  by  it, 
which  He  could  not  by  electing  the  elder.  God  only  elects  or  loves 
what  is  or  will  be  lovely;  and  when  He  elected  or  "loved"  the 
Jacob-nation,  it  was  not  for  any  secret  reason  or  reasons  outside  of 
and  apart  from  it,  but  for  what,  morally  lovely.  He  foresaw  He  could 
secure  in  it,  or  bring  it  to  be  in  itself  and  as  an  instrument  and 
agency  for  the  ends  of  His  redemptive  measure,  by  His  providential 
and  gracious  management,  influences,  institutions,  laws,  and  tutelage. 
This  moral  loveliness  He  foresaw  He  could  not  induce  in  the  Esau- 
nation,  as  a  nation,  or  not  to  any  such  degree  as  in  the  other,  or  as 
would  secure  the  ends  of  the  election;  but,  instead.  He  foresaw  in 
it,  as  a  whole,  only  what,  despite  all  He  could  wisely  do  for  it,  would 
be  morally  unlovely  and  hateful.  The  reasons,  therefore,  for  this 
election  were  in  what  He  foresaw  would  be  true  in  the  case  of  each 
of  these  nations  under  it  and  all  it  .nvolved  on  His  part,  both  ia 
(*)  See  his  Com.  on  Rom.,  9:12,  13. 


JACOB  AND  ESAU.  215 

themselves  and  as  related  to  His  great  redemptive  measure;  and 
there  is  not  a  hint  either  in  Gen.  25:23,  or  in  Mai.  1:2,  3,  or  in  Rom. 
9:10-13,  or  anywhere  else,  that  it  was  for  any  other  reasons  what- 
ever. 9.  This  election  singled  out  the  Jacob-nation,  not  only  from 
that  of  Esau,  but  from  all  the  nations  of  the  world,  for  a  special 
relation  and  service  to  God  and  a  special  religious  and  moral  relation 
and  mission  to  mankind,  to  culminate  in  the  advent  and  mission  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  from  and  among  it.  It  singled  it  out  to  be  a 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  a  theocracy  specially  constituted,  trained, 
and  conserved  in  the  true  theistic,  Abrahamic  religion  by  His  special 
superintendence,  interventions,  discipline,  revelations,  institutions, 
organizations,  deliverances,  protections,  punishments,  restorations, 
priesthood,  judges,  kings,  inspired  prophets,  psalmists,  authors,  holy 
men  and  women,  and  heroic  champions  and  leaders.  His  Spirit,  His 
Scripture,  His  assignment  to  it  of  Canaan,  and  all  its  relations  to 
other  nations  and  theirs  to  it,  until  the  Great  Redeemer  should 
come  from  it,  and  in  many  momentous  respects  to  the  end  of  the 
world. 

§118.    SUCH    ELECTIONS    AS    THAT    OF   THE    JACOB-NATION    AND    REJEC- 
TIONS AS  THAT  OF  THE    ESAU-NATION  COMMON. 

Expounders  of  Scripture  have  rightly  observed,  that  there  is 
nothing  singular  in  the  fact  of  the  election  of  the  nation  of  Jacob  in- 
stead of  that  of  Esau  for  a  special  relation  to  and  mission  in  the  world, 
since  history,  from  the  beginning,*  records  manifold  such  elections, 
showing  that  they  belong  to  the  order  of  God's  management  of  the 
race.  They  are  clearly  manifest  in  our  own  national  history  from 
its  beginning.  But  they  scarcely  deserve  comparison  with  this  one 
in  respect  to  ends  and  importance.  For,  while  this  had  world-ends 
for  the  chosen  nation  itself  through  centuries  and  for  others  related 
to  it,  they  were  comparatively  trivial  and  entirely  subordinate  to  its 
main,  grand,  consummate  end,  which  was  that  it  should  be  God's 
organ  for  conserving,  developing,  and  representing  the  true  Abra- 
hamic, theistic  religion  in  the  apostate  world,  and  thus  preparing 
the  way  for  its  promised  consummate  unfolding  in  Christ  and  His 
dispensation  of  eternal  salvation  for  mankind.  In  order  to  be  such 
an  organ  to  the  most  complete  degree  possible,  we  can  see  the 
necessity  that  it  should  be  a  theocracy,  an  organized  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  which  would  represent  or  typify  Christ  in  His  rela- 
tions to,  and  government  of,  His  spiritual  kingdom  of  God,  and  the 

(*)  Deut.  32:8;  Gen.  10;  Acts  17:26. 


2l6  GOD,  CHRIST,  REDEMPTIVE  PLA^. 

relations  of  that  kingdom  and  each  one  in  it  to  Him.  The  more 
completely  it  could  be  constituted  to  typify  or  symbolically  prefigure 
all  this,  the  greater  its  adaptation  to  educate  and  mold  the  successive 
generations  of  its  people  would  be.  Therefore,  not  only  the  whole 
nation  as  theocratic,  or  a  kingdom  of  God  among  all  the  other 
nations  of  mankind,  was  typical  of  Christ  and  His  kingdom,  and  as 
such  a  constant  embodied  prophecy  of  them,  but  everything  on 
God's  side  respecting  it,  and  on  its  side  respecting  Him  as  theii 
Ruler  and  covenant  God,  which  could  be  made  typical  of  the  same, 
or  of  anything  important  in  the  relations  of  Christ  to  His  people 
individually  or  otherwise,  was  so  made,  and  was  thus  a  constant 
prophecy  of  every  such  thing.  It  was  as  if,  from  the  outset  of  that 
nation,  God's  relation  to,  and  every  step  and  measure  in  His  course 
towards  and  for  it  on  the  one  side,  and  its  relation  to  Flim  and 
everything  in  its  organization,  institutions,  and  history  under  Him 
had  a  finger  pointing  forward  to,  and  a  mouth  prophesying  and  pro- 
claiming all  down  the  centuries  respecting  Christ  and  His  spiritual, 
everlasting  kingdom,  and  all  the  relations  between  Him  and  it.  As 
it  was  precisely  to  be  such  a  theocratic,  typical  nation  that  this 
Jacob-nation  was  elected,  it  is  manifest  that  the  election  of  it  was 
itself  entirely  typical,  and  the  purpose  according  to  it  was  simply  to 
execute  it.  lo.  As  this  election  of  Isaac  and  of  Jacob  was  not  of 
either  of  them  as  an  individual  and  was  not  to  eternal  salvation,  but 
was  of  each  of  them  as  progenitor  of  and  identified  with  the  prom- 
ised line  of  His  theocratic  posterity  in  this  world,  so  the  rejection 
of  Ishmael  and  Esau  was  not  of  either  of  them  as  an  individual  and 
from  eternal  salvation;  and,  as  this  purpose  of  God  according  to  this 
election  related  to  them  and  that  promised  line  only  in  this  world, 
so  this  rejection  of  Ishmael  and  Esau  in  connection  with  their  pos- 
terities, related  to  them  only  in  this  world.  Both  this  election  and 
this  purpose,  therefore,  were  subordinate  and  subservient  to  God's 
election  to  eternal  salvation  and  His  eternal  redemptive  purpose, 
which  were  in  order,  antecedent  to  them,  underlay  them,  and  will 
continue  with  our  whole  race,  while  they  ended  with  the  advent  of 
Christ.  II.  But,  by  adducing  those  cases  of  God's  electing  only 
parts  of  the  very  offspring  of  Abraham  and  Isaac,  including  their 
national  descendants,  to  inherit  His  promised  theocratic  relations 
and  blessings,  and  rejecting  the  other  parts  from  receiving  them, 
the  Apostle  most  pertinently  proves  respecting  the  Israelitish  nation 
of  his  time,  that  their  natural  descent  from  those  ancestral  patri- 
archs was  not  the  condition  of  the  promises  made  to  Abraham  re- 


JACOB  AMD  ESAU.  217 

specting  his  seed  from  Sarah,  and  did  not  secure  their  salvation, 
nor  any  special  favor  to  them  as  individuals,  nor  prevent  their  being 
rejected  as  a  nation  for  not  accepting  and  believing  in  Christ  as 
their  promised  Messiah  and  Saviour.  He  thus  shows  that,  as  God, 
in  those  patriarchal  beginnings,  elected  out  of  all  the  offspring  of 
Abraham,  to  whom  the  promises  were  given,  the  nation  of  Jacob  to 
the  special  theocratic  relations  to  Himself  without  infringing  those 
promises,  so  then,  when  Christ  had  come.  He  did  not  infringe  them 
by  electing  out  of  this  nation  itself  to  salvation  the  remnant  of  it 
which  believed,  and  rejecting  the  whole  of  it  besides  for  its  unbelief. 
He  was  only  acting  on  the  same  general  principle. 

Such,  Ave  believe,  is  the  true  view  of  this  whole  passage.  But 
the  Apostle  well  knew  the  objections  which  the  antagonizing  Jews 
would  still  array  against  it;  and  he  goes  on  to  overthrow  them  and 
to  set  forth  and  establish  from  their  Scriptures  the  full  truth  con- 
cerning their  unbelieving  nation.  Chapters  9,  10,  and  11  are  one 
section  of  this  epistolary  treatise  of  the  Great  Apostle,  pronounced 
by  Coleridge,  "  the  most  profound  work  in  existence,"  and  by 
Schaff,  "  this  wonderful  production  of  a  wonderful  man;  "  and  the 
remainder  of  this  section  is  directly  connected  with  the  passage  we 
have  considered,  throws  back  its  light  upon  it,  and  unfolds  its  pro- 
found import  and  significance.  The  Apostle  was  a  consummate 
master  in  reasoning  and  in  adroit  construction  of  his  argument  to 
meet  and  fit  close  to  his  opponents  without  giving  them  just  cause 
for  offense.  He  knew  how  his  showing  that  they  were,  as  a  nation, 
no  longer  God's  elect  people  in  the  theocratic  sense,  or  in  any  sense 
which  secured  their  salvation,  but  were  rejected,  would  shock  and 
revolt  them;  but  he  wishes  and  designs  to  show  them  more  and 
worse  concerning  their  real  condition  and  relations  to  God  and  the 
Gentile  nations.  His  argument  throughout  the  section  is  a  won- 
drous, infrangible  concatenation,  of  which  the  portion  we  have  exam- 
ined contains  the  first  link,  which  is  all  that  specially  concerns  what 
we  have  been  endeavoring  to  show  in  this  Chapter.  We,  therefore, 
omit  here  the  examination  we  have  made  of  the  whole  remainder  01 
the  section  to  its  close  at  the  end  of  the  nth  Chapter.  Should 
Providence  favor  us  with  an  opportunity,  we  design  to  publish  our 
examination  of  the  entire  section,  with  other  productions,  includ- 
ing one  on  Materialism  and  Evolution,  and  one  on  the  Sufferings 
and  Death  of  ftur  Lord  according  to  the  Gospel  records,  after  the 
publication  of  this  now  in  hand. 


PART  111. 


THE  LAW  A  UNIT;  DIVIDED  TOWARD  HUMAN  SINNERS  INTO 
THE  TWO  DEMANDS  FOR  RETRIBUTIVE  JUSTICE  AND 
MERCY.  EXPIATION  AND  PROPITIATION.  THE  ATONE- 
MENT AND  ITS  PURPOSE. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

The  imity  of  the  Law  in  all  moral  beings  in  respect  to  the  ever- 
obedient.  Divided  towards  human  sinners  into  two  opposite  dematids — 
one  of  justice  as  retributive,  the  other  of  mercy;  and  the  relations  of 
these  demands  to  each  other. 

§  119.    THE  LAW  IN   ALL  MINDS  A  UNIT  TOWARDS    THE    EVER-OBEDIENT, 
AND  ALSO   THE   LOVE  IT  ENJOINS. 

The  applications  of  the  law  to  moral  beings  are  as  numerous 
and  various  as  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to  God.  But  neither 
any  nor  all  of  these  are  the  law.  Not  even  the  ten  commandments, 
nor  the  two  tables  of  them  are  in  reality  the  law.  It  is  a  tmit.  Nor 
can  it  be  obeyed  by  acting  formally  according  to  any  number  of  its 
applications,  or  even  of  the  ten  commandments,  but  only  by  exer- 
cising the  pure  moral  love  to  moral  beings,  which  it  enjoins,  and 
which  is  a  //////.  To  render  this  love  to  all  the  ever-obedient  is 
ethical  justice  to  them,  because  it  is  their  due,  that  to  which  they 
intuitively  know  each  other  to  have  a  natural  right  as  well  as  a 
moral  one;  so  that,  in  rendering  it,  each  simply  pays  this  due.  The 
law  being  thus  jnirely  social,  the  love  must  be  rendered  to  each  who 
has  not  by  sin  forfeited  the  right  to  it,  not  as  isolated  from  all  others, 
but  as  related  to  them  by  the  social  bond  of  the  law  in  their  com- 
mon nature,  so  that  it  cannot  be  truly  rendered  to  one,  if  not  in 
principle  to  God  and  all,  nor  withheld  from  one,  if  not  in  prin- 
ciple from  God  and  all.      This  must  be  fust  as  true  of  the  law  in 


BOTH  UNITS  DIVIDED.  219 

God^s  mind  and  of  His  love  conformed  to  it,  as  it  is  of  it  in  the  minds 
of  other  7noral  beings  and  of  their  love  in  obedience  to  it.  This  must 
be  so,  because,  by  creating  them  such  beings.  He  not  only  consti- 
tuted them  universally  a  social  moral  society,  interbound  by  the  law 
in  them  to  the  perfect  and  perpetual  mutuality  of  the  love  it  enjoins, 
but  demonstrated  that  He  is  such  a  Being,  and  so,  by  necessity  of 
nature,  in  and  of  that  society  forever;  acting  in  all  moral  relations 
by  the  same  law  which  is  in  all  its  other  members;  exercising  the 
same  love  with  His  infinite  powers  which  it  requires  them  to  exer- 
cise with  their  finite  powers;  and  governing  it  with  all  rightful' 
authority,  as  its  only  all-sufificient,  everlasting  Author  and  Head,  as 
the  law  makes  Him  responsible  to  do.  But  let  us  specially  notice 
here,  that  the  love  which  fulfills  the  law,  whether  of  God  or  of  any 
other  Being,  must  be  without  any  modification,  a  unit  perfectly  full 
towards  every  sinlessly  obedient  one,  zvhich  it  must  not  and  cannot  be 
tozvards  any  sinner.  This  position  is  certain.  If  sin  had  never 
entered  the  universe,  the  love  of  each  in  it  to  each  would  have  been 
thus  perfectly  full,  and  its  universal  reciprocity  would  have  been 
universal  ethical  justice,  and  have  united  2^\  with  God  as  Head  in 
an  absolutely  perfect  society.  But  it  did  enter,  and  all  the  incon- 
ceivable numbers  guilty  of  it  have  rent  and  fractured  that  society, 
so  that  it  can  never  be  restored  to  its  original  or  ideal  universal 
state.  All  these  have  forfeited  all  right  to  the  moral  love  of  God 
and  all  holy  beings,  so  that  it  is  not  due  to  them;  and,  at  the  same 
time,  they  have  created  a  correlative  right  in  the  still  loyal  society 
and  God,  both  as  a  Person  and  as  Ruler,  to  the  retributive  punitive 
suffering  of  each  of  them  as  God  sees  he  deserves,  so  that  it  is  due 
both  to  Him  and  that  society,  and  is  His  and  its  infinite  interest  and 
concern.  Thus  their  moral  relations  to  the  law,  to  that  society,  to 
God,  and  to  the  universal  and  eternal  moral  system  are  radically 
changed;  and  both  the  law  and  the  love  which  fulfills  it  are  corres- 
pondingly changed  or  modified  towards  them.  Let  us  glance  at  these 
changes  or  modifications. 

§  120.    BOTH  THESE  UNITS  DIVIDED  IN  ALL  TOWARDS    HUMAN    SINNERS. 

On  the  one  hand,  the  moment  of  their  first  sin,  the  justice  of 
the  law,  before  for  them,  ceases  to  be  so,  because,  by  the  forfeiture 
their  sin  makes,  nothing  is  due  to  them,  and,  on  the  other,  it  turns 
against  them,  demanding  their  punishment  as  they  deserve  to  meet 
the  due  from  them  to  God  and  His  holy  society.  If  they  have 
sinned  against  known  highest  obligation,  and  so  in  presumptuous 


220  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

defiance  of  it  and  God,  the  antagonism  of  the  law's  justice  to  them 
is  absolute;  no  scope  is  left  for  the  exercise  of  mercy  towards  them, 
and  they  must  be  punished  as  they  deserve.  Instead  of  the  /////  un- 
modified \o\'Q.,  due  to  all  the  ever-obedient,  being  due  to  them,  noth- 
ing is  from  God,  unless  that  their  punishment  shall  not  exceed  their 
ill-desert.  The  sin  of  the  angels  that  kept  not  their  first  estate  was 
doubtless  thus  absolute;  and,  when  the  gracious  probation  granted 
to  human  sinners  ends,  the  antagonism  of  the  law's  justice  to  all 
who  shall  remain  incorrigible  must  be  equally  absolute.  When  it 
becomes  so  towards  any,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  there  can  be  no  such 
sympathy  with  them  in  any  holy  mind  as  will  lead  it  to  insert  itself 
into  their  lot  and  feeling  of  ruin  and  pain,  or  as  will  make  it  unhappy 
by  suffering  in  feeling  with  them.  Who  that  believes  what  the  Scrip- 
tures teach  concerning  Satan  and  his  angels  can  possibly  have  any 
such  sympathy  with  them  in  their  penal  suffering?  Who  could  have 
it  with  the  myriads  of  moral  monsters  of  both  sexes  from  Cain 
down,*  if  known  to  suffer  penally  as  they  deserve?  There  are  cer- 
tainly multitudes  of  cases,  in  which  there  can  be  no  sympathy  with 
sufferers  of  severest  penal  inflictions  beyond  the  mere  emotions  of 
pity  and  sorrow  that  they  should,  by  their  v/ickedness  and  crimes, 
as  known  even  to  men  in  this  world,  have  made  their  subjection  to 
these  socially  and  morally  necessary  and  good.  It  is  only  respect- 
ing sinners,  in  whose  cases  there  are  mitigating  circumstances,  such 
as  great  want  of  light  and  experience,  circumvention  and  great 
temptation  by  superior  wicked  minds,  very  defective  realization  of 
the  nature,  guilt,  and  consequences  of  sin,  and  other  such  facts,  that 
the  antagonism  of  the  Law's  justice  to  them  is  not  absolute,  but 
modified,  and  that  redemption  is  possible.  The  whole  matter  stands 
thus: — If  there  were  no  sinners,  the  love  required  by  the  law  would 
be  a  perfect  imit  in  every  mind  to  every  one,  being  perfect  ethical 
justice  between  all: — If  all  sinners  had  so  sinned,  that  the  demands 
of  the  law's  retributive  justice  were  absolute  against  them,  then,  not 
only  could  no  just  love,  such  as  is  due  to  the  ever-obedient,  but  not 
even  its  modification  to  mercy,  be  exercised  towards  them,  and  they 
would  necessarily  suffer  the  punishment  they  would  deserve,  which 
is  the  case  of  Satan  and  his  angels,  and  must  be  of  all  incorrigible 
human  sinners  when  their  probation  ends: — But,  if  there  are  sinners, 
in  whose  cases  there  are  such  mitigating  circumstances  as  are  indi- 
cated above,  so  that  the  demand  of  the  law's  retributive  justice  is 
not  absolute  against  them,  but  admits  the  modified  exercise  of  moral 
i*ys^e  §§  62,  63. 


LA IV  TOWARD  MITIGATED  SIN.  221 

love  towards  them,  which  is  called  mercy,  then,  understanding  as 
we  must,  that  mankind  in  this  life  are  such,  what  is  true  of  the  law, 
as  it  is  in  the  minds  of  God,  of  all  holy  moral  beings,  and  even  of 
realizing  men  respecting  them? 

§  121.    A  KIND  OF  SCHISiNI  IN  THE  LAW  IN  ALL   TOWARDS  THOSE  GUILTY 
OF  MITIGATED  SIN. 

We  answer  that  their  sin,  thus  mitigated,  causes  a  Icinci  of 
schism,  so  to  say,  in  the  law  in  the  minds  of  all  referred  to,  ///  relation 
to  them,  dividing  it  into  two  contrary  demands  or  dictates — that  of  its 
quality  of  justice,  that  the  due  of  penal  suffering,  according  to  their 
ill-desert,  shall  be  exacted  from  them  for  the  great  social  end  of  the 
total,  everlasting  society,  and  that  which  enjoins  mercy  or  simple 
benevolence  to  them  merely  for  the  sake  of  their  good  as  individ- 
uals. This  demand  or  dictate  to  mercy  is  not  that  that  of  justice 
shall  be  disregarded,  but  that,  on  account  of  the  mitigating  facts  in 
their  case,  and  because  their  penal  suffering  would  be  their  utter 
ruin,  while  their  rescue  from  it  would  be  their  everlasting,  perfect 
good,  they  shall  be  rescued,  if  possible  consisteiitly  with  the  dematia 
of  ethical  justice  to  God  and  His  universal  and  eternal  holy  society. 
These  two  contrary  demands  are  more  or  less  experienced  by  the 
greater  part  of  mankind  during  their  lives  towards  evil-doers  and 
criminals,  in  whose  cases  mitigating  facts  are  known  or  very  prob- 
able; and  the  fact,  thus  attested,  that  these  contrary  demands  neces- 
sarily proceed  from  moral  nature,  often  even  when  extremely  per- 
verted, towards  such  transgressors,  along  with  the  whole  tenor  and 
teaching  of  Scripture,  certifies  us  that  they  co-exist  in  God  respect- 
ing human  sinners  with  a  strength  that  man  cannot  measure.  But 
they  must  both  end  'in  Him  respecting  each  of  them,  at  the  end  of 
his  probation,  for  two  reasons — one,  that,  after  that,  there  will  be 
no  unsatisfied  demand  of  justice  against  any  one  restored;  the 
other,  that  there  will  be  no  demand  for  mercy  to  be  exercised  to 
any  one  not  restored,  as  the  demand  of  retributive  justice  will  then 
be  absolute  against  every  such  one.  They  must  also  end  in  all 
fellow-beings,  when  all  the  facts  concerning  each  to  the  end  of  his 
probation  are  made  known  to  them.  It  is  thus  that  the  jarrings  of 
the  rational  universe  will  be  forever  reconciled  (Col.  1:20). 

Confining  now  our  thought  on  this  point  to  God,  the  position 
is,  that,  while  the  law  in  Him,  or  the  imperative  which  constitutes 
it,  towards  each  ever-obedient  one,  is  an  undivided,  unmodified  //////, 
and  His  conformity  to  it  is  the  same,  neither  of  them  is  such  to- 


222  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

wards  hwjian  sinners,  but  on  account  of  the  mitigated  character  of 
their  sin,  each  of  them  is  divided  in  Him  in  the  manner  we  have 
indicated.  To  say  that  either  of  them  is  the  same  towards  human 
sinners  as  towards  the  ever-obedient,  or  as  it  would  be  towards 
them,  if  they  had  always  obeyed,  is  to  say  that  there  is  no  moral 
system  or  society  founded  in  moral  natures;  that  therefore  God 
makes  nothing  of  the  natural  and  moral  rights  and  dues  and  the 
everlasting  interests  and  concerns  of  the  ever-obedient,  and  is 
wholly  indifferent  between  the  obedience  and  go'od-deserts  and 
the  sin  and  ill-deserts  of  sinners;  and  that  He  is  neither  just  nor 
merciful,  holy  nor  good,  but,  if  a  moral  Being,  necessarily  the  oppo- 
site. But,  in  reality,  it  would  be  morally  impossible  for  Him  to 
render  the  same  complete,  unmodified  love  to  human  sinners  as  to 
the  ever-obedient,  as  it  would  be  in  defiance  of  His  infinite  moral 
reason,  conscience,  and  whole  moral  nature,  since  it  would  be 
putting  the  unjust  on  par  with  the  just,  the  wicked  with  the  right- 
eous, the  godless  with  the  godly.*  The  only  love  He  can  exercise 
to  human  sinners  is  the  modified  love  of  mercy,  which  is  simply  love 
of  their  being  and  its  proper  good,  though  sinners.  This  He  can- 
not possibly  exercise  towards  any  ever-obedient  one,  as  his  natural 
and  moral  rights  and  dues  can  only  be  met  by  love  without  modifi- 
cation, and  this  of  mercy  would  be  practically  slanderous  and  unjust 
towards  him  by  implying  that  he  was  a  sinner  and  guilty,  and  such 
therefore  as  God  could  not  exercise  towards  him. 

§  122.  HOW  god's  mercy  DIFFERS  FROM  THE  LOVE  DUE  TO  THE  EVER- 
OBEDIENT,  AND  RELATES  TO  JUSTICE  BOTH  AS  ETHICAL  AND  AS 
RETRIBUTIVE. 

Mercy  differs  from  the  full,  unmodified  love  due  to  the  ever- 
obedient  by  including  no  moral  approval  of  or  complacency  in  its 
objects,  but  their  opposites;  by  not  being  owed  and  due  to  them  by 
any  right  or  claim  of  justice,  but  by  being  purely  gracious  towards 
them;  and  by  being  exercised  towards  them  by  God  in  opposition 
to  all  their  ill-deserts,  and  to  the  whole  of  His  holy  indignation  and 
wrath  against  them,  including  the  demand  of  retributive  justice  for  , 
their  punishment  according  to  their  ill-deserts.  It  is  constantly 
modified  by  all  these  facts  towards  persisting  sinners  till  their  life 
and  probation  end,  and  it  is  all  the  while  subject  to  and  limited  and 
controlled  by  the  demand  mentioned  of  retributive  justice.     It  is 


(*)  Gen.  18:25;  Job  34:10-12;  Is.  3:12,  18;  Eccl.  8:12,  13;  Rom.  I:l8;  I.  Cor. 
6:9;  10;  Eph.  5:6;  Col.  3:6.  and  numerous  other  places. 


GOD'S  MERCY  DIFFERS  FROM  LOVE.  223 

therefore  simply  that  remainder  of  God's  complete  love  to  the  ever- 
obedient,  which  is  permitted  by  and  consistent  with  the  demand  of 
His  justice  as  ethical  towards  the  everlasting  loyal  society,  includ- 
ing Himself,  for  deserved  retribution  to  be  inflicted  upon  them. 
Their  sin  rives  away  from  the  love  He  would  render  them,  if  they 
had  always  been  perfectly  obedient,  all,  except  this  remainder,  thus 
conditioned,  which  is  constantly  becoming  more  and  more  reduced 
in  power  to  help  persistent  ones  with  every  day  of  their  presumptu- 
ous progress.  No  cement  can  unite,  no  clamp  or  tie  force,  into  one 
again  these  riven  parts;  and  no  strain  of  perverse  thought  can  make 
either  the  law  in  God's  mind,  or  the  love  which  fulfills  it  towards 
human  sinners,  the  unmodified  whole  it  is  towards  the  ever-obedient. 
His  love  is  co-eternal  with  Him,  the  interchange  without  beginning 
or  end  of  the  three  Persons  of  the  Godhead,  and  is  rendered  by 
Him  in  unmodified  fullness  and  forever  to  all  His  moral  creatures 
thus  obedient.  But,  as  just  shown.  His  mercy  is  only  the  remainder 
of  it  towards  such  sinners  as  mankind,  which  is  permitted  by  and 
consistent  with  the  demand  of  retributive  justice  against  them.  It 
has  been  His  moral  disposition  respecting  them  co-evally  with  His 
foreknowledge  of  them  as  sinners — a  special  kind  of  disposition 
which  He  never  could  have  had,  if  He  had  known  that  neither  they, 
nor  any  other  moral  beings  would  ever  become  such  modified  sin- 
ners. It  was  not,  therefore,  a  moral  attribute  separate  from  and 
independent  of  His  love,  but  such  a  residue  of  it  as  He  could  exer- 
cise towards  them  consistently  with  the  demand  of  retributive  jus- 
tice against  them  and  with  their  foreseen  bad  character.  This 
disposition  was  simply  the  state  of  His  will  and  compassionate  feel- 
ings towards  them  as  foreknown.  It  was  not  m  itself  acting  mercy 
to  them,  which  could  not  be  done  till  they  should  live  and  sin;  but 
it  was  one  to  do  so  when  these  foreseen  facts  should  exist.  It  would 
have  remained  forever  quiescent  and  inoperative  in  Him,  if  He  had 
not  connected  with  it  a  coeval  design  then  to  act  or  exercise  it  towards 
afidto  them  in  all  ways  and  degrees  consistent  with  the  demands  of  jus- 
tice as  ethical  to  the  universal  and  eternal  holy  society,  including 
Himself,  which  demand  involved  one  for  retributive  justice  upon 
them.  From  all  this,  it  is  plain  that  mercy  could  not  possibly  exist, 
even  as  a  disposition  in  God,  if  He  had  eternally  known  that  all  cre- 
ated moral  agents  would  perfectly  obey  the  law,  and  that  perfect  eth- 
ical justice  would  thus  forever  bind  together  the  total  and  eternal 
moral  society,  Himself  included.  He  would  have  been  co-eternally 
disposed,  and  have  designed,  on  His  part,  to  render  complete  moral 


224  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

love,  which  is  complete  ethical  justice,  to  them  all  forever,  and  thus 
to  maintain  an  eternal,  absolutely  perfect  universal  moral  system, 
based  on  and  constructed  by  such  justice  without  modification.  Tlie 
f)rinciple  of  reiribjition  is  inherent  in  and  essential  to  the  very  nature  of 
iustice,  and  He  would  necessarily  have  experienced  the  demand  or 
dictate  to  act  by  it  in  rendering  due  rewards  to  all  in  ripe  time;  yet 
He  never  could  have  experienced  the  contrary  demand  to  act  by  it 
in  rendering  to  sinners  the  punishment  they  deserve,  as  He  would 
know  that  there  never  would  be  any.  Such  would  the  moral  society 
and  system  of  the  universe  be  to  His  omniscience,  if  He  had  eter- 
nally known  that  none  would  ever  sin.  We  are  here  on  a  specially 
important  summit  of  observation,  and  ask  readers  to  station  them- 
selves beside  us  upon  it  to  take  a  survey  of  essential  points  it  gives 
to  our  views  connected  with  the  matters  we  are  considering. 

§  123.  HAD  MAN  NEVER  SINNED,  GOD  COULD  NOT  HAVE  HAD  EITHER 
THE  DEMAND  FOR  RETRIBUTIVE  JUSTICE,  NOR  THE  DICTATE  TO 
MERCY. 

The  first  point  we  observe  is,  that,  according  to  the  preceding 
supposition,  God  never  could  have  experienced  either  the  demand 
for  retributive  justice  or  the  dictate  to  exercise  mercy;  and  neither 
of  them  could  ever  have  been  known  in  the  universe  of  creatures! 
What  a  contrast  to  the  actual  one  would  such  a  perfectly  and  eter- 
nally normal  universe  of  moral  beings  present !  No  sin,  no  guilt, 
no  punishment,  no  natural  fruits  of  sin,  no  hell,  no  saviour  with 
atonement,  no  pardon,  no  sinful  race  like  ours,  with  all  its  fools  of 
action  and  thought,  its  wrongers  and  wronged,  its  criminals  and 
their  victims,  its  misbelievers  and  infidels,  its  vicious  and  reckless, 
its  miseries  and  all  sufferings,  known  in  all  its  worlds !  The  unit  of 
absolute  ethical  justice  would  enshrine  and  bless  the  whole  forever. 
2.  The  second  point  we  observe  is,  that  God's  eternal  foreknowl- 
edge that  some  would  sin  must  cause  a  coeval  experience  in  Him 
of  the  demand  of  justice  as  retributive  for  their  deserved  punish- 
ment when  they  should  exist  and  sin.  Thus  the  icnit  of  ethical 
justice,  which  would  have  been  coeval  in  His  mind  with  His  fore- 
knowledge of  the  perfect  and  eternal  obedience  of  all  moral  beings, 
if  they  should  render  it,  would  be  divided  in  it  into  two  distinct  dic- 
tates or  demands  for  Him  to  act  by  when  they  should  exist  and  sin 
— one,  the  purely  normal,  strictly  natural,  full,  social  one  of  the  law 
as  it  is  ill  His  eternal  reason  and  essentially  in  every  unperverted 
finite  reasoa,  which  is  ethic?il  towards  all  the  obedient;  the  other, 


HAD  MAN  NEVER  SINNED.  225 

originated  by  His  foi'csight  of  sinners,  was  not  strictly  normal,  nor 
unconditional,  but  occasioned  and  co7itingcnt,  which  is  retributive. 
In  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  therefore,  retributive  punitive  justice 
is  wholly  subservient  and  ministrant  to,  and  amendatory  of,  violated 
ethical  justice;  and,  when  demanded  by  this,  its  execution  cannot  be 
waived  or  omitted  without  positive  injustice  to  the  whole  everlasting 
moral  society.  The  execution  of  it,  when  positively  demanded,  on 
sinners  is  in  reality  executing  ethical  justice  to  that  whole  society, 
including  Himself,  and  is  essential  to  His  fulfilling  that,  which  is 
rendering  to  it  the  moral  love  due  to  it.  Retributive  justice,  there- 
fore, is  simply  an  executive  act  or  course  of  action,  by  God,  OF  occa- 
sion, by  which  it  is  evoked,  and  without  which  it  could  never  be 
done.  It  is  demanded  by  an  application  of  the  law  or  its  justice  to 
sinners,  which  could  never  have  been  made,  if  no  sinners  would 
ever  exist.  3.  The  third  point  we  observe  is,  that,  on  the  supposi- 
tion of  a  foreknown  perfectly  and  eternally  obedient  universe  of 
rational  creatures,  to  all  whom  He  would  consequently  exercise  per- 
fect ethical  justice  forever,  any  exercise  of  mercy  by  Him  to  any  of 
them  would  be  forever  impossible.  Ofi  the  supposition  of  His  fore- 
knowing, that  all  He  might  create  would  sin  absolutely,  as  the  fallen 
angels  did,  would  deserve  absolutely  ptcnitive  retribution,  and  zvould  be 
wholly  irredeemable,  we  think  it  certain  that  He  would  never  create  one 
of  them.  But,  on  the  supposition  that  He  foreknew,  that  part  of  all 
He  might  create,  say  mankind,  would  sin  with  just  the  mitigations 
they  have,  and  would,  for  these  and  other  reasons,  including  their 
race  relations,  be  redeemable  by  Him,  He  also  knew  that  the  essen 
tial  nature  and  demands  of  justice  and  the  moral  system  jnust  be 
perfectly  maintained  in  any  devisable  righteous,  moral,  or  possible 
redemptive  measure.  Their  sin  would  be  positive  injustice  to  the 
universal  and  eternal  moral  society,  including  God  supremely,  both 
by  robbing  it  of  their  perfect  and  permanent  moral  love  and  all  its 
beneficent  effects,  and  by  all  its  injurious  and  pernicious  effects,  as 
the  one  only  radical  and  permanent  cause  of  evil  in  it.  The  foresight 
of  it  would  necessarily  excite  in  Him  wrath  {opyv),  the  demand 
for  the  execution  of  punitive  retributive  justice  upon  them  when 
they  should  live  and  sin,  in  order  to  meet  the  normal,  strictly  nat- 
ural, universally  social  demand  of  the  law  or  its  ethical  justice  upon 
Him  to  the  whole  eternal  moral  society.  The  relation  of  these  two 
demands  we  have  shown;  and,  from  that  relation,  for  God  to  refuse 
to  execute  the  retributive,  punitive  demand  upon  all  such  sinners, 
or  to  do  some  fully  equivalent  thing  instead,  would  necessarily  be 


226  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CllKlsr. 

absolute,  universal,  endless,  all-ruining  injustice  in  Him.  We  must 
conceive  of  the  relation  in  God's  mind  of  the  demand  of  retribu- 
tive justice  against  sinners  to  His  foreknowledge  of  their  sinning  as 
one  of  dependent  and  instant  succession,  and  so  that  it  was  occa- 
sioned and  originated  in  His  mysterious  antiquities,  and  necessarily 
His  first-born  experience  respecting  them  as  such. 

§  124.   THE    RELATION   IN   GOD'S    MIND   OF   THIS    DICTATE   TO  THIS 

DEMAND. 

What  now  must  we  conceive  of  the  relation  in  His  mind  of  the 
demand  or  dictate  in  it  to  exercise  mercy  towards  them  to  this  of 
retributive  justice?  There  must  be  sinners,  deserving  punishment, 
and  the  demand  for  its  infliction  upon  them  in  God's  mind  before 
He  could  have  even  pity  for  them,  much  more  a  dictate  in  it  to  ex- 
ercise mercy  to  them.  How  could  He  possibly  have  a  demand  to 
exercise  mercy  to  sinners,  if  either  there  were  none,  or  there  were 
no  antecedent  demand  for  their  retributive  punishment?  The  order 
of  the  whole  case  is  this: — i.  If  God  had  foreseen  the  whole  eternal 
society  perfectly  obedient  forever,  the  imperative  in  Him  towards  it 
would  have  been  that  He  should  forever  render  to  it,  all  and  per- 
sonally, perfect  ethical,  and  rewarding  retributive,  justice.  There 
could  be  no  possible  exercise  of  or  place  for  mercy  towards  all  or 
any  of  it  to  all  eternity;  and  justice  alone,  absolutely  natural  and 
normal,  would  forever  hold  all  in  its  hoi/  embrace,  because  all  would 
be  acting  and  related  precisely  according  to  their  perfect  nature 
with  the  law  in  it,  as  God  would  be  to  His.  2.  But,  His  foreknowl- 
edge of  part  of  them,  say  mankind,  as  sinners  would  excite  in 
Him  the  experience,  which  He  never  otherwise  could  have  had 
of  the  demand  of  punitive  retributive  justice  against  them,  as 
ethical  justice  to  all  the  loyal  and  Himself  forever.  The  only 
direct  objects  of  this  demand  are  sinners,  each  according  to 
his  actual  ill-desert  when  the  time  of  infliction  comes,  while  the 
only  objects  of  unmodified  ethical  justice  are  the  ever-obedient, 
each  according  to  His  deserts;  so  that  those  of  each  are  entirely 
different  from  those  of  the  other.  3.  His  experience  of  this  demand 
of  punitive  retributive  justice  would  instantly  excite  His  pity  for 
them,  and  the  dictate  in  Him  to  exercise  mercy  towards  them  to 
rescue  them  from  the  necessity  of  that  punishment,  and  to  restore 
as  many  of  them  as  practicable  to  right  character.  Himself  and  the 
holy  moral  society.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  that  demand  was 
first,  or  this  could  never  have  been.     Both  of  them  were  originated, 


DICTATE  TO  THE  DEMAND,  227 

each  excited  by  an  occasion.  That  of  the  first  of  them  was  foreseen 
sin  or  sinners;  that  of  the  second  was  the  fact  of  the  first  against 
them,  and  was  to  rescue  them  from  suffering  its  execution;  and, 
when,  at  the  final  judgment,  the  former  shall  be  executed  upon  all 
of  them  found  incorrigible,  the  latter  of  them  will  cease  forever- 
more.  From  their  beginning  to  their  end,  the  relation  between  them 
is  never  reversed  nor  reversible.  The  demand  for  punitive  retrib- 
utive justice  upon  sinners  is  always  and  necessarily  antecedent  to 
and  the  occasion  of  the  dictate  to  exercise  mercy;  so  that  mercy  is 
always  subordinate  to  and  restricted  by  that  demand,  and  that  must 
therefore  be  perfectly  met  and  satisfied  before  this  can  act  effectively 
for  its  objects.  One  solid,  invincible  reason  is,  that  retributive 
justice  guards  all  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  the 
whole  eternal,  ever-augmenting,  obedient  society,  and  of  God  as  its 
Ruler,  which  are  immeasurably  greater  and  more  momentous  ends, 
than  those  of  mercy  to  any  number  of  sinners;  and  to  exercise  this 
to  them  without  first  satisfying  the  demand  of  that  against  them 
would  be  to  sacrifice  all  these  of  that  society  for  the  incomparably 
less  good  of  that  doubtless  incomparably  less  number.  It  would  be 
universal,  absolute  injustice,  utterly  subversive  and  destructive  of 
that  entire  moral  society  and  system;  and  we  know  of  nothing  said 
or  wrilten  concerning  the  relation  between  justice  and  mercy  more 
alien  and  adverse  to  either  theological  or  ethical  truth  and  discrim- 
ination than  the  following  excerpts,  among  others  which  might  be 
found  in  the  same  Work  and  Chapter — "  Having  much  to  say  about 
justice,  as  an  exact  doing  upon  wrong  of  what  it  deserves,  we  begin 
to  imagine  that  justice  goes  by  desert,  both  in  its  rules  and  meas- 
ures, and  thinks  of  nothing  else.  It  follows,  of  course,  that  justice 
lets  go  being  just,  exactly  as  it  falls  below  the  scale  of  desert  in  its 
executed  penalties."  *  "In  some  sense  we  have  two  [dispensations], 
viz.,  justice  and  mercy;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  there  is  any  pri- 
ority of  time  in  one  as  related  to  the  other,  or  that  both  are  not 
introduced  to  work  together  for  one  common  result." f  "Then,  by 
the  supposition,  justice  may  have  taken  away  the  chances  and  in- 
fringed the  rights  of  merc}^,  as  truly  as  mercy  can  have  violated  the 
rights  of  justice;  when  if  compensations  are  to  be  made,  the  mercy- 
impulse  of  God's  feeling  has  as  good  right  to  compensation  from 
his  justice,  as  that  from  his  mercy.  For  his  mercy  is  as  old  as  his 
justice,  and  began  as  soon,  and  is  a  character  certainly  not  less  dear 

(*)  Bushnell's  V.  S.,  Part  III.,  Chap.  HI.,  pp.  267,  8. 
(I-)  Do  p.  271. 


228  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

or  sacred.  Justice,  too,  may  as  fitly  groan  for  the  pacification  of 
mercy,  as  mercy  for  the  pacification  of  justice."  *  "  God  nowhere 
signifies  that  he  has  given  up  the  world  to  the  prior  right  of  justice, 
and  that  mercy  shall  come  in,  only  as  she  pays  a  gate-fee  for  the 
right  of  entrance."  "j'  What  a  muddle!  What  a  void  of  analysis, 
discrimination,  definitions,  and  clear  views  of  the  real  meanings  of 
the  main  terms  of  the  discussion,  and  of  their  necessary  relations! 
But  what  better  could  consist  with  the  anti-social,  anti-moral,  law- 
annulling,  God-dethroning,  conscience-contradicting,  naturalistic 
absurdity,  that  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  are  its  only  punish- 
ment, and  that  God  will  inflict  no  positive  retributions. 

The  Scriptural  doctrine  as  to  the  relation  of  the  demand  of 
retributive  justice  against,  and  the  dictate  of  mercy  towards,  man- 
kind has  always  been,  in  substance,  this: — In  accordance  with  God's 
foreknowledge  and  plan,  when  the  first  human  pair  sinned,  instead 
of  immediately  executing  the  demand  of  retributive  justice  upon 
them,  at  the  dictate  of  His  mercy  He  devised  the  redemptive  meas- 
ure for  them  and  their  race  until  He  saw  it  would  be  best  to  end 
this.  Through  that  whole  time,  the  execution  of  that  demand  against 
them  was  to  remain  for  them  entirely  suspended  during  this  life; 
and  mercy,  with  her  darling  daughter  grace,  attended  and  aided  all 
along  by  all  best  providences,  both  disciplinary  and  beneficent,  and 
working  with  or  against  the  natural  consequences  of  all  moral 
action,  good  or  bad,  which  follow  no  rule  whatever  of  justice  or 
desert,  has  constantly  had  them  under  her  benign  tutelage,  doing  all 
and  the  very  best  for  them  that  could  be  done  through  all  their 
generations.  Retributive  justice  has  been  no  co-factor  or  co-agent 
with  her  in  that  tutelage,  except  as  certified  to  all  men  by  tlie 
prophet  conscience,  and  to  all  who  have  the  Word  of  God  by  its 
foretellings,  to  resume  its  long-suspended  immediate  relation  to  all 
the  incorrigible  despite  all  mercy's  intervention  to  rescue  and  save 
them.  No,  as  retributive,  justice  sprung  instantly  forward  with  its 
demand  "at  completing  of  the  mortal  sin  original,"  but,  by  Divine 
behest,  with  assurance  of  perfect  satisfaction,  forthwith  withdrew  or 
stood  aside,  leaving  the  whole  run  of  the  race  to  mercy,  with  her 
daughter  and  all  her  attendants  indicated,  who  took  all  possible 
possession  of  the  field  with  all  the  agencies,  means,  and  methods  ot 
infinite  wisdom,  including  the  incarnate,  atoning  Christ  and  all  the 
gifts  He  secured  for  men,  with  this  present  life  as  a  time  of  gracious 
(*)  Do  p.  275. 

iW  Do  n.  276. 


ATOiVEMENT,  GOD,  MAN".  229 

probation,  or  opportunity  for  reconciliation  with  God  and  eternal 

redemption,  which  is  an  incomparably  higher,  richer  view  of  mercy 

than    any   jumbling,    co-factor    notion    can    possibly    permit.     All 

denial  of  positive  retributive  justice  equally  derogates  from  mercy; 

and,  with  natural   consequences  as  the  only  retributions,  God   can 

exercise  none  in  remitting  or  forgiving  them.    IVhoeve?'  fights  justice, 

fights  mercy;  the  slaughter  of  justice  is  that  of  mercy;  and  never 

were  truer  lines  written  than  those  of  the  poet  Young  respecting 

the  deniers  in  his  day  of  God's  retributive  justice,  who  made  His 

mercy  mere  good-natured  indifference  that  would  not  punish: — ■ 

"They  set  at  odds  Heav'n's  jailing  attributes, 
And  with  one  excellence,  another  wound; 
Maim  Heaven's  perfection,  break  its  equal  beams, 
Bid  mercy  triumph  over— God  himself, 
Undeified  by  their  opprobrious  praise: 
A  God  all  mercy  is  a  God  unjust." — Nig/it  IV. 

§  125.    POINTS    CONNECTED    WITH    THE    SUBJECT    OF    THE    ATONEMENT 
RESPECTING    BOTH  GOD  AND  MAN. 

To  the  preceding  discussion  concerning  the  relation  of  the  two 
cardinal  points  of  justice  and  mercy,  we  here  fitly  append  brief  state- 
ments of  some  other  points  essentially  involved  in  the  subject  of 
the  atonement.  As  to  what  must  be  true  on  the  side  of  God,  we 
notice  the  following: — 

I.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  measure  of  the  atonement  must 
have  been  purely  God's  own  device,  and  was  one  which  He  only 
could  execute.  All  other  moral  beings  are  His  creatures  and  under 
His  government,  and  are  therefore  wholly  incapable  of  either  devis- 
ing or  executing  one.  On  account  of  His  infinite  nature,  attributes, 
excellence  of  character,  and  relations  to  all  as  their  Creator  and 
Ruler,  He  must  be  absolutely  responsible  to  His  own  conscience 
and  to  the  everlasting  holy  society,  all  inter-bound  by  their  natures 
in  a  moral  system  with  Him,  to  govern  it  in  perfect  ethical  justice 
or  moral  love  to  Himself  and  all  in  it  according  to  His  own  and 
their  natural  and  moral  rights  to  such  a  government.  As  the  atone- 
ment is  a  measure  for  sinners  against  Him  and  that  society,  and  is, 
therefore,  directly  related  to  His  government.  He  only  can  originate 
and  execute  it;  and  He  must  do  so  in  perfect  consistency  with  ethical 
justice  to  Himself  and  that  society.  This  justice  must,  like  an  insur- 
mountable, adamantine  wall,  forever  shut  out  all  favor  to  sinners 
which  does  not  consist  with  and  confirm  it  as  the  supreme  righf, 
interest,  and  concern  of  Himself  and  all  its  members.  For,  it  must 
forever  be,  not  only  "  the  point  where  all  interests  meet  and  balance, 


230  THE  A  TONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

those  of  God  and  those  of  all  other"  moral  beings,  but  the  bond 
that  ties  Him  and  all  to  the  perfect  reciprocities  of  the  love  required 
by  the  eternal  law;  and  never,  while  He  and  they  have  rights,  dues, 
interests,  and  concerns,  natural  and  moral,  can  it  cease  to  be  the 
standard  and  measure  of  that  love,  and  thus  the  Divine  vase  to  hold 
it  for  Him  and  them.  As  retributive,  it  is  the  measure  of  all  rewards 
owed  by  and  due  to  Him  and  all  holy  beings  in  eternal  mutuality,  and 
of  all  the  punishments  to  be  inflicted  by  God  on  sinners  at  the  final 
judgment.  It  is  thus  an  eternal  defence  of  all  the  holy  against  them 
and  all  the  pernicious  results  of  their  sin  and  its  prolific  and  ever- 
varying  modes  of  OBtward  action  and  manifestation. 

2.  The  impulse  in  God's  sensibility  to  make  an  atonement  for 
human  sinners  was  doubtless  the  deepest  feeling  that  ever  occupied 
it.  It  was  measureless  pity  or  sympathy  for  them  in  their  lost  con- 
dition as  He  saw  it,  both  as  under  the  necessity  by  the  law  in  Him- 
self and  them  of  suffering  the  punishment  demanded  by  retributive 
justice,  and  as  wholly  incapable  of  restoration  from  sin  and  its 
natural  consequences  to  the  love  enjoined  by  the  law  and  its  natural 
consequences  by  any  efforts  of  themselves  or  of  any  other  creatures 
for  them,  or  even  by  any  of  Himself,  except  by  making  an  atonement 
for  them,  by  which  to  meet  the  demand  of  retributive  justice  against 
them,  and  to  provide  agencies  and  instrumentalities  necessary  to 
restore  any  of  them  to  love  and  obedience  to  Him.  He  foreknew 
all  it  would  cost  Him  of  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  to  make  it,  but 
also  that,  on  the  one  hand,  it  would  be  a  vastly  less  evil,  and,  on  the 
other,  an  immeasurably  greater  good,  to  Himself  and  all  holy  beings, 
including  all  He  could  thus  redeem,  than  the  perdition  of  all,  or 
even  of  the  part,  of  mankind  He  saw  He  could  save  by  it.  His 
infinite  reason  therefore  accorded  with  His  infinite  pity,  and  He 
accordingly  willed  to  make  it,  and  thus  to  save  as  many  as  He  saw 
could  be  brought  by  all  that  He  could  consistently  do  to  fulfill  the 
ethical  conditions  necessary  to  their  forgiveness  on  its  ground.  His 
sensibility,  intelligence,  and  will  thus  perfectly  concurring,  consti- 
tuted His  HEART  towards  them,  which  is  one  of  pure  mercy  and 
grace — mercy,  the  disposition  to  do  all  possible  to  save  them,  con- 
sistent with  the  indefeasible  demand  of  retributive  justice  against 
them,  and  grace,  the  disposition  to  give  and  to  offer  to  give  them 
while  yet  sinners,  notwithstanding  their  sins  and  ill- desert,  all  gifts 
and  favors  prompted  by  mercy,  and  consistent  with  their  rela- 
tions to  God  and  holy  beings,  and,  to  all  of  them  who  yield  to  the 
required  conditions,   all   the  measureless   additional  ones   promised 


MEDIATORSHIP  OF  OUR  LORD.  231 

in  the  inspired  Word.  But,  because  mercy  and  grace  are  in  no 
sense  due  to  them  by  any  obhgation  of  justice  upon  God,  and  are 
exercised  by  Him  towards  them  to  rescue  them  from  the  demands 
of  retributive  justice  against  them,  which  nothing  less  than  the 
atonement  could  deliver  them  from,  they  are  necessarily  restricted 
by  those  demands  until  they  are  in  fact  or  fixed  design  met  and 
moved  out  of  the  way.  When  this  is  done,  all  obstruction  to  the 
exercise  of  these  towards  human  sinners  is  suspended  till  their 
gracious  probation  has  ended,  and  they  are  free  to  pour  their  ex- 
haustless  riches  upon  the  successive  generations,  unhindered  except 
by  their  resisting  depravity  and  the  counterworking  of  Satan.  As 
God's  pity  for  them  must  have  been  vastly  the  strongest  sympathetic 
feeling  that  ever  occupied  His  sensibility,  so  His  wisdom  in  devising 
a  measure  to  be  a  perfect  ground  for  His  forgiving  them  on  con- 
dition of  their  true  ethical  return  to  Him,  and  His  exercising  all 
grace  towards  them  consistent  with  the  everlasting  rights,  dues 
interests,  and  concerns  of  Himself  and  all  holy  beings,  as  ethical 
justice  demands,  must  have  been  incomparably  greater  than  in  devis- 
ing the  whole  material  universe  and  all  the  orders  of  creatures.  So 
also  the  determination  of  His  will  to  execute  it  must  equally  have 
transcended  in  exertion  o^  will-power  any  other  ever  made  by  Him, 
both  on  account  of  the  infinite  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  it  would 
cost  Him,  and  of  its  intrinsic  and  fundamental  importance  to  Him, 
to  all  holy  beings,  to  mankind,  and  especially  to  all  of  them  who 
will  be  saved  by  it.  For  on  that  Divinely  prepared  ground  would 
be  rooted,  grow,  and  flourish  the  only  spiritual  life-tree  for  mankind 
with  all  its  fruits  of  salvation  and  joy;  whose  glorious  branches 
would  spread  far  beyond  them  to  the  whole  universe  of  created  holy 
beings,  and  would  bear  for  Lhem  endless,  measureless  augmentation 
of  knowledge  of  Crod's  character,  of  the  absolute  justice  of  His 
love  to  themselves,  and  Kis  mercy  to  human  sinners  to  the  immense- 
ness  of  amplitude  that  justice  permits,  of  their  own  satisfaction 
from  the  numbers  of  these  sinners  redeemed  and  added  to  their 
everlasting  holy  society,  and  of  all  their  good  and  blessedness,  while 
it  would  bear  for  God  Himself  endless  and  boundless  pleasure 
and  glory. 

§  126.    DEVICE  OF  THE  INCARNATION  AND  MEDIATORSHIP  OF  OUR  LORD, 
AND  ERRORS  CONCERNING  THEM. 

3.  We  have  shown  the   origin  of  the   demand  of  retributive 
justice  against  mankind  as  sinners,  and  that  of  the  dictate  of  mercy 


232  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

towards  them.  To  these  antiquities  in  God's  mind,  was  forthwith 
added  from  the  pressure  of  pity  and  the  dictate  of  mercy  the  device 
by  Him  of  the  redemptive  measure  for  the  ruined  race.  The  funda- 
mental requisite  in  this  device  was  an  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the 
world;  and  the  fundamental  requisite  for  making  it  was  the  incar- 
nation of  the  second  Person  of  the  Godhead,  as  Scripture  surely 
teaches.*  Not  only  is  there  not  in  all  Scripture  even  a  hint  that  our 
Lord  would  ever  have  become  incarnate,  if  mankind  had  all  remained 
forever  obedient,  but  in  the  passages  referred  to,  it  is  directly  taught, 
and,  in  others,  it  is  plainly  implied,  that  the  principal,  transcendent 
end  of  the  incarnation,  that  upon  which  all  its  other  ends  and  uses 
in  this  world  and  the  heavenly  one  depended,  was  that  He  might 
''have  somewhat  to  offer"  (Heb.  ^:'^,  and  be  thus  able  to  make  an 
atonement,  a  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  It  was 
as  the  rewarding  result  of  finishing  the  work  which  His  Father  gave 
Him  to  do  by  His  atoning  sufferings  and  death,  that  He  prayed  His 
proleptical  High-Priestly  prayer  for  His  own  eternal  glorification 
with  Him,  as  risen  from  the  dead,  still  and  forever  to  be  incarnate, 
and  for  that  of  all  believers  to  be  with  Him  in  a  union  so  complete 
that  they  will  constitute,  in  a  profound  sense,  His  body.f  As  there 
is  no  warrant  in  Scripture  for  supposing  that  our  Lord  would  ever 
have  been  incarnated,  if  our  race  had  never  sinned,  so  neither  is 
there,  even  the  least,  that  He  ever  has  been  or  will  be  a  Mediator 
between  God  and  any  other  beings  than  mankind.  The  Greek  noun, 
/;f(T/77/f,  mediator,  is  used  in  the  New  Testament  four  times  to 
designate  Christ — in  L  Tim.  2:5;  Heb.  8:6;  9:15;  12:24; — ^^^d  its 
meaning  in  all  the  cases  is,  that  He  executes  the  function  between 
God  and  human  sinners  of  one  who  interposes  between  hostile  or 
adverse  parties  to  bring  them  into  reconciliation.  In  Gal.  3:19,  it 
designates  Moses  as  discharging  essentially  the  same  function;  and, 
in  verse  20,  signifies  only  that  a  mediator  is  necessarily  between  at 
least  two  parties.  There  is  no  Greek  verb  which  means  to  inediate 
in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  therefore  simply  futile  and  worse,  as 
well  as  to  misuse  language,  to  make  our  Lord's  mediatorship  consist 
in,  or  include  anything  else  than,  His  acting  between  God  and  man, 
in  their  opposition  produced  by  man's  sin,  to  effect  their  reconcili- 
ation, which  acting  was  mainly  in  His  priestly  function  of  making 
atonement  for  their  sins  and   His  intercessions  to  God  for  them;  or 


(*)  Mat.  20:28;  John  3:16,  17;  I.  John  4:9,  16;  Gal.  4:4,  5;  Phil.  2:6-8;  Heb. 
2:9,  14-17;  9:11,  12,  26;   10:5-10;  I.  I'et.  i:iS  20. 
(*)  John  17;  Eph.  1:20-23, 


IF  MAN  HAD  NOT  SINNED.  233 

to  say  that  He  mediates  in  any  other  way  than  in  so  acting  between 
these  two  parties,  God  and  man.  Scripture  knows  nothing  whatever 
of  "the  mediation  of  Christ  in  its  universal  character,"  or  "His 
mediating  God  to  the  entire  universe."  His  mediating  is  just  as 
universal  as  mankind  and  God,  and  no  more  so.  Creating  is,  in  no 
sense,  mediating;  nor  is  His  upholding  or  causing  the  consistence 
of  the  universe  of  things;  nor  is  His  revealing  or  manifesting  any- 
thing; nor  is  "communicating"  anything  "into  finite  existences." 
All  such  notions  of  Christ's  mediatorship  are  not  only  groundless, 
but  are,  and  necessarily  produce,  "  confusion  worse  confounded." 
Distinct  actings  and  things  must  be  kept  distinct  in  mind.  Invented, 
supposititious  meanings  of  words  and  facts  are  no  less  perversive 
and  no  more  allowable  in  theology  than  in  any  other  science,  or 
than  counterfeit  coin  in  a  nation's  currency.  The  Scriptural  truth 
is,  that,  if  God  had  not  foreseen  the  lapse  and  sin  of  our  race,  and 
the  demand  of  retributive  justice  for  their  punishment.  He  would 
never  have  experienced  the  dictate  of  mercy;  nor,  moved  by  it, 
have  devised  and  purposed  the  plan  and  measure  of  redenipiioii; 
nor,  in  purposing  it,  have  foreordained  the  incarnation  and  redeem- 
ing death  of  Christ.''' 

§  127.    NO  END    OF    IMPORTANCE    ATTAINABLE    DY   THESE,    IF    MAN    HAD 

NOT  SINNED. 

The  incarnation  and  mediatorship  of  Christ  are  fundamental 
constituents  of  the  measure  of  redemption;  and  this  is  as  exclusively 
for  our  race  of  sinners  as  its  direct  objects,  as  a  remedial  prepara- 
tion is  for  the  sick.  We  must  assume  both  of  these  constituents  of 
that  stupendous  measure  and  mystery  of  God's  justice  and  mercy 
as  thus  wholly  confined  to  it;  and  to  assume  that  either  of  them 
would  have  been  effected,  though  mankind  had  never  sinned,  is 
essentially  to  derogate  from  and  depreciate  the  intrinsic  nature  and 
the  special  relation  to  man  of  that  whole  measure.  For,  as  it 
respects  such  an  incarnation,  although  it  would  be  in  human  nature, 
it  would  be  for  the  benefit,  not  of  mankind  only,  but  of  the  whole 
universe  of  the  obedient  alike.  How  for  their  benefit?  or  for  what 
benefit  to  them  alike?  Is  it  said,  for  an  organ  and  medium  of 
revealing  and  manifesting  Himself  to  them?  We  ask  again,  reveal- 
ing and  manifesting  what  of  Himself?  Surely  not  that  He  exists; 
for  they  would  universally  know  that  without  such  a  medium.    Surely 


(*)  I.  Pet.  1:18-20;  Acts  2:23;  Eph.  3:9,  11;  Col.  1:26;  II.  Tim.  1:9,  10;  Titus 
1:2.  .s;  Rev.  13:8;  Rom.  16:2s,  26. 


234  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

not  that  He  is  the  Creator  and  Upholder  of  all  things,  including 
themselves;  nor  that  He  is  a  moral  Being,  and  that  they  are  the 
same;  nor  that  they  are  in  a  universal  moral  society  and  system, 
with  Him  as  its  Ruler,  to  whom  they  are  responsible  and  account- 
able; for  there  would  not  be  an  agnostic,  nor  a  blind  infidel  among 
them,  nor  one  without  at  least  a  concrete  knowledge  of  the  essen- 
tials of  the  moral  system.  Surely  not  that  He  is  etlncally  jitst  \.q 
them  in  being  retributively  jitst  in  punishing  sinners;  for  this  is 
moral  common  sense,  when  the  case  and  terms  are  understood. 
Surely  not  that  He  is  merciful  and  gracious  to  any  degree;  for  there 
would  be  no  sinners,  except  those  apostate  angels  who  were  beyond 
•  mercy,  and  therefore  none  to  whom  to  act  or  manifest  it.  And 
surely  not  that  He  so  loved  the  nature  and  proper  good  of  such 
sinners  as  mankind  are,  despite  all  their  hostility  and  guilt,  as  to 
devise  and  execute  the  whole  measure  of  redemption,  connected 
with  and  dependent  upon  the  incarnation,  for  their  salvation — all 
the  infinite  humiliation,  self-denial,  and  self-sacrifice  of  the  Son  under 
the  law  and  in  human  relations,  in  all  His  atoning  sufferings  and 
death  on  the  cross,  and  of  the  Father  in  His  part  towards  His  only- 
begotten  and  well-beloved  Son  in  sending  and  giving  Him  to  fulfill 
all  the  part  He  did  among  men,  and  in  not  sparing,  but  freely  deliv- 
ering Him  to  suffer  and  die  on  the  cross  for  them  as  He  did;  for 
nothing  of  all  this  measureless  mercy  and  grace  to  such  sinners 
would  be  possible,  as  there  would  be  none.  What  a  dream  is  the 
supposed  revealing  and  manifesting  effect  of  such  an  incarnation? 
Besides,  as  it  would  be  in  huiiian  nature,  unfallen,  and  in  its  relations 
and  conditions,  and  would  be  revealing  and  manifesting  to  mankind, 
if  anything  at  all  concerning  Himself,  only  more  clearly  the  per- 
fection of  His  character,  as  it  could  be  disclosed  to  and  appre- 
hended by  the  obedient  generations,  and  as  it  would  be  vacant  of  all 
the  exhibitions  of  justice  and  judgment,  or  of  mercy  and  grace,  wisdom 
and  goodness,  which  He  has  actually  exercised  and  made  towards 
them  as  sinners,  how  could  it  possibly  have  any  such  supposed 
effect  on  other  orders  of  moral  beings,  existing  or  to  exist?  It  does 
not  seem  to  us,  that  the  angels  would  have  much  "desire  to  look 
into  it,"  as  disclosing  anything  remarkable  about  God's  character, 
or  that  it  would  be  to  them  more  than  a  noteworthy  curiosity  in  His 
course  towards  men!  "Progressive  orthodoxy"  must  not  imitate 
that  crustacean  animal  which  so  readily  progresses  backward. 
Plainly,  these  notions  of  the  incarnation  and  mediatorship  of  Christ 
must  greatly  impair  the  reason  and  sense  of  gratitude  to   God, 


TRUTHS  ON  THE  SIDE  OF  GOD.  235 

Father,  and  Son,  in  mankind,  in  respect  to  them  and  the  redemp- 
tive system.  As  to  "difficulty  in  believing  that,  but  for  this  insig- 
nificant earth,  the  most  glorious  revelation  of  God  might  not  have 
been  given  at  all,"  see  Discourse  IV.  of  Dr.  Chalmer's  Astronomical 
Discourses,  and  the  Scriptures  he  appends  to  it. 

§  128.    OTHER  TRUTHS  ON  THE  SIDE  OF  GOD. 

4.  God  is  one  being;  but,  if  only  one  Person,  He  could  not 
make  an  atonement.  As  Scripture  certainly  teaches.  He  exists  as 
three  Persons  in  one  being  or  spiritual  substance.* 

5.  Scripture  also  teaches  that  the  incarnation  of  the  second 
Person  was  a  necessary  prerequisite  to  God's  making  an  atonement. 
By  this,  that  Person  became  the  representative  of  our  race,  to  act 
for  it  in  all  things,  and  so  its  substitute  in  His  atoning  sufferings  and 
death]  and  it  is  by  being  such  that  He  became  and  is  the  "  one 
Mediator  between  God  and  men,  the  man  Christ  Jesus,  who  gave 
Himself  a  ransom  for  all." 

6.  In  order  to  the  atonement,  it  was  necessary  that  each  Person 
of  the  Trinity  should  fulfill  a  special  part,  as  Scripture  clearly  teaches 
each  of  them  did.  And,  from  the  oneness  of  their  substance,  attri- 
butes, and  character,  they  must  have  been  equally  and  absolutely 
voluntary  and  agreed  in  devising  and  adopting  the  stupendous  meas- 
ure, and  in  acting  their  respective  parts  in  it.  There  can  be  no 
schism  in  the  Godhead;  and  the  Son  therefore  neither  would  nor 
could  be  forced  in  any  sense  to  become,  do,  or  suffer  anything  to 
execute  His  part,  more  than  the  Father  or  the  Holy  Spirit  to  execute 
His.  As  far  as  the  execution  of  each  one's  part  related  to  men,  the 
only  bond  on  Him  to  perform  it  was  their  mutual  agreement  freely 
entered  into  from  measureless  mercy  and  grace  to  them. 

7.  It  is  intrinsically  absurd  to  suppose  it  was  any  part  of  the 
design  of  God,  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  in  making  the  atonement,  to 
render  Himself  merciful  and  gracious  towards  human  sinners.  For, 
besides  the  silliness  of  the  supposition,  that  He,  or  any  intelligent 
being  would  undertake  in  such,  or  any  way  to  work  these  or  any  dis- 
positions in  Himself,  they  were  the  supreme  and  constraining  rea- 
sons and  impulsions  in  Him  to  make  it  for  them.  It  was  their 
product,  their  child  brought  forth  designedly  to  meet  and  appease 
the  righteous  demands  of  retributive  justice  in  God  and  all  other 
moral  natures,  as  we  have  abundantly  shown.     How  infinitely  strong 

(*)  bee  Chapter  Vlll.  liuuughout. 


236  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

these  dispositions  in  Him  must  have  been  to  impel  Him  to  make  the 
atonement  for  our  race  of  sinners,  and,  as  such,  enemies,  at  such  a 
stupendous  cost  to  Himself,  no  mortal  can  tell  or  conceive,  except 
in  limited  measure.    They  are  morally  dimensionless  (Eph.  3:17-19). 

§  129.    WHAT  TRUE   ON  THE  SIDE  OF  MAN. 

On  the  side  of  man,  two  great  common  facts  made  an  atone- 
ment possible  for  them,  which  did  not  exist  in  the  case  of  the  fallen 
angels:  i.  One  was  their  race-constitution,  by  which  the  Second 
Person  of  the  Trinity  could  become  incarnate,  the  Son  of  man  as 
well  as  the  Son  of  God,  the  God-Man,  and  thus  the  representative 
of  our  race  in  His  entire  mission,  and,  by  consequence,  its  substitute 
in  His  sufferings  and  death.  It  was  thus  that  He  was  naturally  by 
the  Divine  arrangement  "the  one  Mediator  between  God  and  men." 
2.  The  other  was,  that  there  were  mitigating  circumstances,  not  only 
in  respect  to  the  fall  of  our  first  parents  into  sin,  but  in  the  case  of 
their  whole  posterity  as  sinners,  which  modified  their  sin,  so  that  it 
was  not  absolute,  as  was  that  of  the  fallen  angels.  These  will  be 
shown  in  another  place;  and  we  only  notice  here  that,  on  account 
of  them,  although  mankind  as  sinners  deserved  just  retributive  pun- 
ishment, yet  that  desert  of  it  was  modified,  and  their  condition 
made  them  objects  of  God's  infinite  pity,  which  prompted  Him,  as 
He  saw  that  vast  multitudes  of  them,  if  not  all,  would  be  yet  capa- 
ble of  redemption  and  restoration  to  harmony  with  Himself  and 
His  universal  holy  society,  to  exercise  mercy  to  them  to  the  stu- 
pendous degree  of  making  the  atonement  and  doing  all  connected 
with-  it,  in  order  to  save  as  many  of  them  as  would  be  morally 
possible. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Expiation  and  Propitiation. 

§  130.  MEANINGS  OF  THESE  TERMS;  RELATION  OF  THE  TWO,  EXPIA- 
TION DEMANDED  BY  JUSTICE,  BOTH  AS  ETHICAL  AND  AS  RETRIBU- 
TIVE. 

It  is  specially  important  in  relation  to  the  subject  of  the  atone- 
ment to  understand  clearly  what  is  meant  by  the  terms  expiation 
and  propitiation,  and  we  begin  this  Chapter  by  investigating  their 
import.  Expiation  consists  in  satisfaction  rendered  by  wrong- 
doers, or  others  for  them,  to  those  whom  they  have  wronged,  or  to 
rulers  by  some  equivalent  of  repairing  action,  sacrifice,  or  suffer- 
ance of  penalty.  '~~\vl  theological  use,  the  term  means  a  vicarious 
sacrifice  offered  to  God  by  or  for  sinners  in  a  way  authorized  by 
Him,  which  sacrifice  is  accepted  by  Him  as.  a  full  equivalent  for  the 
penal  suffering  deserved  Bylhem  for  the  sin  or  sins  on  account  of 
which  it  is  offered,  and  which  is  thus  a  satisfaction  of  the  demand 
of  retributive  justice  against  them.  This  demand  being  thus  met, 
God  is  propitiated  towards  those  for  whom  the  sacrifice  has  been 
off'ered,  so  that  expiation  and  propitiation  are  essentially  connected 
as  cause  and  effect.  God  is  propitiated  towards  sinners  by  the  de- 
mand of  retributive  justice  against  them  being  met  and  satisfied 
by  the  sacrifice  substituted  for  them  as  liable  to  suffer  the  penalty 
they  deserve,  that  they  may  be  saved  from  it;  and,  on  account  of  all 
involved  in  the  case,  the  fact  that  He  is  propitiated  towards  them 
only  in  this  way  is  gloriously  honorable  to  Him;  while  any  imagin- 
able propitiation  without  expiation  would  be,  on  account  of  all  in- 
volved in  it,  enormously  dishonorable  to  Him  and  noxious  to  the 
whole  family  of  Christian  truths  and  doctrines.  Those  who  reject 
expiation  do  so,  because  they  have  previously  rejected  retributive 
justice,  and  substituted  for  it  an  indefinable  cloud,  which  they  call 
righteousness,  or  very  often  nothing  but  foolish  talk  about  the  mercy 
or  love  of  God  as  disregarding  such  justice.     But  what  kind  of  an 


238  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

ethical  entity  could  this  imagined  righteousnes  of  God  be,  which 
lacks  the  osseous  quality  of  justice,  and  violates  its  bond  to  secure 
to  the  utmost  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  the  whole 
loyal  society  under  Him,  and  of  Himself?  What  kind,  when  that 
quality  of  the  law,  which  alone  makes  //  right  or  straight  between 
moral  beings,  and  conformity  to  it  righteousness.  Is  treated  as  of  no 
account  or  wrong.  What  kind,  when,  instead  of  making  the  crooked 
straight  by  retributive  inflictions  upon  sinners  themselves  or  upon  a 
substitute,  in  order  to  secure  from  them  the  due  of  penal  suffering 
which  they  owe  to  God  and  the  holy  society  under  Him,  He  and  it 
have  no  such  due  from  them  for  all  the  "wrong  and  injury  done  by 
them;  and,  however  enormou^s  their  sins  or  crimes  may  have  been, 
He  must  inflict  no  retributive  punishment  upon  them,  but  must 
enter  Himself  into  their  bad  condition  from  the  natural  consequences 
of  all  the  evil  they  have  done,  and  must  put  Himself  to  cost  and 
tragic  suffering  for  them,  to  rescue  or  relieve  them,  the  greater,  the 
worse  in  sin  and  condition  they  are?  What  kind,  when,  as  is 
asserted.  He  has  been  in  this  attitude  towards,  and  at  this  outlay 
for,  them  from  eternity  past,  and  must  be  in  the  same  forever,  and 
is  thus  made  not  only  an  eternal  non-resistant,  which  He  has  no 
right  to  be,  and  which  it  is  utterly  wrong  for  Him  to  be,  but,  worse 
yet,  the  perpetual  vassal  and  victim  of  the  wicked  ?  It  is  no  kind 
at  all;  for  nothing  can  be  righteousness  in  God  or  any  being  which 
is  in  conflict  with  any  real  demand  of  justice,  or  the  nature  and  pos- 
sibility of  a  moral  system.  There  is  no  unjust  righteousness,  nor 
righteous  injustice;  for  justice  is  an  eternal,  fundamental  fact  in  the 
nature  of  God,  of  all  moral  beings,  and  of  the  everlasting  law  in  it; 
and,  in  essential  principle,  ethical  and  retributive  are,  as  we  have 
said  elsewhere,  one,  and  cannot  be  severed.  Were  it  true,  as  has 
been  asserted,  that  the  idea  of  justice  is  not  from  the  Bible,  but  only 
from  the  Greek  and  Roman  Classics,  while  it  gives  that  of  righteous- 
ness only,  we  would  say,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  Bible;  for,  as  to 
this  idea,  the  classics  are  certainly  right.  But  it  is  not  true;  for  no 
other  book  or  class  of  books  in  the  world  competes  with  the  Bible  in 
setting  forth  in  positive  declaration,  in  distinct  assumption,  and  in 
plain  implication,  the  fact  of  God's  eternal,  immutable  justice,  and 
that  it  will  be  infallibly  executed  towards  His  rational  creatures,  good 
and  bad,  as  the  basis  of  His  holiness.  His  government,  and,  in  a 
fundamental  way,  of  His  very  gospel.  It  is  this  fact  that  made  an 
expiation  a  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  the  forgiveness  of  sinners;  and 
exoiation  is  intrinsically  propitiation,  because  His  justice,   being 


EXP  I  A  TOR  V  SA  CRTFICES.  239 

perfectly  vindicated  and  sustained  by  the  substitution  which  makes 
it,  is  no  longer  a  bar  to  His  mercy  and  grace,  which  are  therefore 
set  free  to  operate  towards  sinners  to  the  utmost  degree  which  con- 
sists with  infinite  wisdom. 

§  131.    EXPIATORY     SACRIFICES     NOT     ORIGINATED    V.\     MEN,    RUT    EVI- 
DENTLY BY  DIRECTION  OF  GOD  TO  ADAM,  AND  SO  TO  MANKIND. 

The  fact  of  the  expiatory  character  of  all  the  bloody  sacrifices 
required  by  the  Levitical  Law,  and  also  of  the  same  in  the  heathen 
world  from  the  earliest  times,  is  certain.  The  only  reasonable 
explanation  of  this  fact,  as  it  respects  the  heathen,  is,  that  their 
offering  them  as  such  had  its  origin  in  the  Divinely  authorized  offer- 
ing of  them  by  Adam,  followed  by  Abel,  by  others  to  the  Deluge,  by 
Noah  and  his  sons  after  it,  and  by  their  descendants  along  down  the 
centuries.  Some,  however,  while  admitting  the  Scriptural  account 
of  the  origin  of  such  sacrifices,  yet  say  that  the  belief  of  the  heathen 
that  they  were  expiatory  was  not  developed  till  in  generations  after 
the  Deluge,  and  was  a  perversion  of  the  primitive  view  of  them. 
But  the  reason  and  facts  of  the  case  are  against  them: — For,  i. 
According  to  history,  the  heathen  were  always  unanimous  in  this 
belief,  and  made  these  sacrifices  in  it.  How  came  this  unanimity? 
Some  say,  simply  from  the  teachings  or  impulsions  of  their  con- 
sciences or  moral  nature  under  the  convictions  and  sense  of  sin — a 
specimen  of  mere  naturalistic  invention,  not  comporting  with  any 
tellings  of  Scripture  respecting  their  relation  to  and  effect  upon 
God  on  one  side,  when  rightly  offered,  and  the  offerers  on  the  other, 
nor  with  their  typical  relations  to  the  offering  and  sacrifice  of  Christ 
for  the  sins  of  the  world.  This  unanimity  is  one  to  be  noticed — 
that  of  the  nations  and  races  of  mankind  through  decades  of  cen- 
turies, which  starting  in  the  blnid  gi/ess  oi  some  troubled  sinner, 
that,  if  he  should  build  an  altar,  lay  wood  upon  it,  slay  a  domestic 
animal,  sheep,  goat,  bullock,  or  heifer  in  such  a  manner,  burn  the 
carcass  prepared  so  and  so  upon  the  wood  on  the  altar,  and  suppli- 
cate pardon  and  favor  from  God,  He  would  grant  them;  which 
guess,  acted  out  and  told  by  its  author,  being  adopted  by  one,  by 
another,  and  so  on  as  readily  and  rapidly  as  dry  combustibles  adopt 
touching  flames,  becanie,  as  fast  as  made  known,  the  common  be- 
lief, ritual  law,  and  practice  of  the  nnanin'ous  ivorld !  To  add  to 
the  wonder,  this  guess  was  so  perfect,  that  God  also  forthwith 
adopted  it!  We  have  no  extra  caiial.Mlity  of  belief  to  waste  on  so 
unreasonable  an   attemjit  to   account  for  cither  the    origination  of 


240  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

these  sacrifices,  or  the  common  unanimity  of  all  nations  during 
more  than  2000  years  before  Christ,  both  as  to  offering  them  and 
as  to  believing  them  strictly  expiatory.  It  seems  manifest  on  the 
face  of  Gen.  4:3-5,  that  Cain  and  Abel  simply  did  as  their  father  had 
taught  and  trained  them  from  childhood  to  do  in  bringing  offerings 
to  the  Lord — Abel's  being,  and  Cain's  for  some  reason  not  being,  of 
the  kind  proper  at  that  time;  and  Cain's  not  being  respected  by  the 
Lord,  because  designedly  different  in  kind  from  Abel's,  and  brought 
without  faith  in  a  proud,  rebellious  self-willedness  against  Him 
(Heb.  11:5).  Our  explanation,  given  above,  is  therefore  plainly  the 
true  one.  It  harmonizes  all  the  involved  facts — that  of  the  Divinely 
directed  origination  by  Adam,  the  sinning  head  of  the  race,  of  the 
offering  of  special  kinds  of  domestic  animals  as  sacrifices  to  God 
— that  he  offered  them  as  expiatory,  and  taught  his  children  that 
they  were,  and  his  sons  to  offer  them  as  such — that,  apostate  Cain 
doubtless  excepted,  these  children  so  taught  theirs,  and  these 
sons  offered  them  as  such — and  thus  this  belief  concerning,  and 
custom  of  offering,  these  sacrifices  as  expiatory  were  transmitted 
down  the  generations  of  the  ever-increasing  numbers  and  the 
branching  divisions  of  mankind,  till,  as  far  as  all  embraced  in 
the  Roman  Empire  were  concerned,  they  were  abolished  in  it  by 
Constantine  at  the  end  of  the  third  century  after  Christ.  Neither 
Scripture  nor  other  history  hints  of  any  different  or  later  origin 
either  of  offering  them  or  believing  them  both  Divinely  instituted 
and  expiatory;  so  that  there  is  no  shadow  of  reason  for  supposing 
or  guessing  that  the  belief  that  they  were  expiatory  was  a  heathen- 
ish corruption  or  departure  from  the  correct,  primary  view  of  them 
handed  down  from  Adam.  2.  The  fact  that  God  instituted  the 
offering  of  these  same  animals  as  expiatory  by  the  Levitical  Law 
goes  to  confirm  the  preceding,  and  evinces  that  the  heathen  were 
always  right  in  believing  their  sacrifices  expiatory.  3.  The  fact  also 
that,  as  appears  from  Scripture  and  other  history,  these. domestic 
animals  only  were  offered  by  them  for  even  centuries,  as  they  had 
been  by  Noah,  and  as  they  were  afterwards  to  be  by  Israel  as 
required  by  the  Levitical  Law;  and,  that  they  remained  the  <:/«>/ sac- 
rifices after,  although  in  some  regions  others  were  added,  strengthens 
the  proof  of  the  preceding  positions.  4.  The  heathenish  perver- 
sions consisted  in  gradually  adding  many  other  kinds  of  victims,  and 
even  human  beings,  not  only  foreigners,  enemies,  captives  in  war, 
criminals,  slaves,  and  sometimes  poor  people,  but  sons,  daughters, 
and  sometimes  persons  of   highest  rank,   even  kings,  and  persons 


OBJECIIONS   TO  EXI^IAJIUN.  241 

taken  by  lot — in.  offering  their  sacrifices  to  false  gods  and  idols — in 
making  the  mere  offering  of  them  an  opus  operaticm,2.%  ritualists  and 
formalists  have  always  used  the  Christian  sacraments  and  other 
religious  rites — and  in  all  the  gross  ceremonies,  practices,  pollu- 
tions, and  superstitions  more  and  more  connected  with  them  from 
the  ever-increasing  darkness  and  corruption  of  the  heathen  mind. 
But  neither  any  nor  all  of  these  go  a  step  towards  proving  or  im- 
plying that  the  belief  in  the  expiatory  character  of  their  animal 
sacrifices  was  in  the  least  degree  a  perversion.  On  the  contrary, 
amidst  all  these,  this  fundamental  character  of  these  sacrifices 
remained  steadfast  in  the  belief  of  the  heathen,  like  some  peak 
standing  high  out  of  the  all-surrounding  ocean,  unchanged  by  all  its 
currents  and  commotions.  It  was  a  Pharos  shedding  the  hope-light 
of  the  primal  revelation  of  a  redemption  by  sacrifice  from  the  curse 
of  sin  over  the  benighted  deep  of  the  apostate  mind  of  the  world, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  laid  and  kept  a  solid  foundation  in  that  mind 
for  the  truth  of  salvation  by  the  expiatory  sacrifice  of  Christ;  and 
it  thus  greatly  conduced  to  the  wonderful  rapidity  of  the  conver- 
sion of  the  heathen  under  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel. 

§  132.    FROM   WHOM    OBJECTIONS  TO  EXPIATION    ALWAYS    COME,  AND  TO 
WHAT  DENIAL  OF  IT  ALWAYS  LEADS.    • 

The  objections  to  expiation  from  their  special  start  with  Socinus 
down  to  Dr.  Bushnell  and  since  have  all  along  been  the  same  swal- 
lows returning.  They  always  come  from  deniers  of  retributive 
justice,  or,  which  is  the  same  in  effect,  of  the  moral  necessity  for  its 
execution,  and  consequently  of  the  necessity  for  vicarious  atone- 
ment to  meet  and  avert  its  demand  against  sinners,  in  order  to  their 
forgiveness.  The  denial  of  these  is  prolific  of  others  of  correlated 
and  dependent  truths  and  facts  of  revelation  and  the  Christian  sys- 
tem. It  involves  a  denial  of  any  real  moral  government  or  even  law 
of  God,  of  real  moral  nature  in  God  or  man  having  the  law  in  it,  of 
course,  of  any  universal  and  eternal  moral  society  and  system,  hence 
of  any  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  God  and  that  society 
against  sinners,  consequently  of  any  real  moral  probation  under 
either  the  law  or  the  gospel,  consequently  again,  of  the  possibility 
of  the  exercise  of  any  mercy  or  grace  by  God  towards  men  in  mak- 
ing an  atonement  to  rescue  them  from  suffering  deserved  penal 
infliction,  of  their  forgiveness  on  the  basis  of  an  atonement,  or  at 
all,  if  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  are  its  only  punishment,  for 
these  cannot  be  forgiven,  and  the  word  is  without  meaning,  and  of 


242  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

Still  other  truths,  some  radical  and  vital.  The  samples  and  parodies 
of  exegesis  this  denial  induces  are  wonderful  to  contemplate.  Such 
eliminations  of  meanings  from,  and  importations  of  meanings  into, 
texts;  such  assumptions  of  having  proved  the  teachings  of  Scripture 
on  essential  points  in  controversy,  when  a  thorough  canvass  of 
them  has  not  even  been  fairly  begun,  certainly  not  in  the  works  in 
which  they  are  declared;  such  misrepresentations  and  caricatures 
of  doctrines  opposed;  such  ventures  of  assertion  respecting  matters 
of  Scripture  or  fact,  reckless  of  what  proper  investigation  may  dem- 
onstrate to  be  truth;  such  arraying  of  subordinate  parts  or  appli- 
cations of  prophetical,  typical,  and  other  inspired  deliverances 
against  the  main  and  transcendent  matters  communicated,  in  order 
to  negative  or  evade  those  matters  and  to  establish  their  opposites; 
such  distortions  and  perversions  of  words  and  expressions,  and 
overleaping  or  trampling  upon  the  most  certain  principles,  pro- 
cesses, and  conclusions  of  logic  and  sound  reasoning;  such  transfers 
of  real  or  assumed  heathenish  and  superstitious  views  and  perver- 
sions of  expiatory  sacrifices  over  to  the  Scriptural  and  Christian 
views  and  belief  concerning  them,  as  they  really  are,  in  order  to  en- 
velop the  truth  of  these  with  odium  and  contempt;  such  rackings 
and  metamorphosings  of  the  palpable  meanings  of  Scriptural  terms 
and  teachings  respecting  sacrifice,  atonement,  redemption,  reconcil- 
iation, justification,  and  others,  to  force  them  to  fit  the  poor  sem- 
blance of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  which  is  left  when  its  real  expiatory 
atonement  is  eliminated  from  it;  such  manifold  resorts  to  these  and 
all  kindred  modes  and  artifices  of  partisan  controversy  as  throng 
the  works  of  some  rejecters  of  this  doctrine  from  Socinus  down, 
cannot,  we  think,  be  paralleled  in  the  works  of  writers  on  any  other 
subject  of  partisan  authorship.  The  champion  foremost  of  all  in 
recent  times,  and  most  expert  in  all  such  modes  of  warfare,  who 
exerted  his  prowess  against  this  central  truth  of  Christianity,  was  the 
late  Dr.  Bushnell.  In  the  opulent  war-chariot  of  his  exuberant  dic- 
tion, imagery,  and  rhetoric,  in  design  at  least,  "O'er  shields,  and 
helms,  and  helmed  heads  he  rode,"  bearing  down  on  all  who  with- 
stood his  bold  career;  and  he  won  abundant  eclat,  if  not  victory,  by 
the  dashing  recklessness  of  his  dare-doings. 

§  133.  bushnell's  assaults  on  it  misrepresent  it,  and  are 
groundless  and  false. 

In  his  last  work,  "Forgiveness  and  Law,"  he  rushed  in  his  usual 
wav.  in  Section  V.,  pp.  81-92,  against  the  doctrine  of  expiation,  his 


BUSHNELVS  ASSAULTS  GROUNDLESS. 


243 


method  being  to  set  it  forth  with  the  superstitious  adjuncts  and  per- 
versions attached  to  it  by  the  heathen  in  the  run  of  time;  to  assume 
it  thus  shown  to  be  identical  with  the  Scriptural  view;  then  to  hurl 
the  coruscating  shafts  of  his  rhetoric  at  it  as  a  moral  monstrosity 
antagonist  to  propitiation  as  conceived  by  him;  and,  having  en- 
veloped it  with  the  dust-clouds  of  his  assumptions  against  it,  to  leave 
it  as  if  done  to  death  by  his  resistless  onslaught.  But  he  so  left  it 
in  utter  mistake;  for,  all  invulnerable,  it  still  lives  unimpaired,  and 
is  destined  to  live  till  time  shall  end.  Some  of  his  assumptions 
against  it  deserve  notice.  He  says — "it  cares  never  for  the  morality 
or  justice  of  what  is  gained,  but  only  for  the  agreeableness  of  it," 
(p.  S:^) — that  it  is  "  fairly  unmoral;  *  *  showing  that  God  accepts 
the  pains  of  the  good  in  payment  for  the  pains  of  the  bad,  and  is 
more  intent  on  His  modicum  of  pains  than  on  having  proper  justice 
done — taking  clean  away  the  word  and  fact  of  forgiveness;  for,  if 
the  debt  of  sin  is  paid,  there  is  no  longer  anything  to  forgive;  sub- 
stituting government  also  by  a  kind  of  proceeding  that  has  no 
relation  whatever  to  conscience  and  right"  (pp.  86,  87).  A  more  pre- 
posterous tissue  was  never  woven  in  any  loom  of  absurdity.  Of  this, 
we  believe  the  whole  Part  I.  of  this  work  is  absolute  demonstration; 
and  we  here  make  a  glancing  reference  to  it. 

In  that  Part,  we  have  shown  that  the  justice  of  the  law  is  the 
protecting  fortress  of  its  matter  of  pure  moral  love,  and  that,  if 
justice  is  not  maintained  unimpaired,  that  matter,  and  with  it  the 
rights,  dues,  claims,  interests,  and  concerns  of  God  and  His  entire 
holy  empire,  is  dismantled  of  all  enforcement  and  protection,  and 
left  to  be  forever  swept  away  from  regard  and  drowned  by  an  all- 
prevailing  deluge  of  unrestrained  selfishness,  corruption,  and  horrors 
of  crime.  The  eternal  law  in  all  moral  natures  and  the  moral  sys- 
tem it  constitutes  therefore  demand  that,  if  the  perfect  moral  love 
which  is  required  by  the  justice  of  the  law  as  ethical  be  not  rendered 
by  moral  actors,  the  penal  suffering  which  is  required  by  its  justice 
as  retributive,  and  which  is  the  natural  correlative  or  substitute  for 
that  love  withheld,  shall  be  inflicted.  In  this  Part,  it  is  shown  that 
there  is  no  valid  principle  or  reason  conceivable  why  God  cannot, 
if  He  will,  assume  this  suffering  Himself,  instead  of  inflicting  it  upon 
human  sinners,  and  that  the  imperative  of  the  law  to  the  love  due 
to  the  ever-obedient,  modified  towards  them  by  their  sin  to  mercy, 
requires  Him  to  do  so  for  the  sake  of  their  good,  if  He  sees  that 
He  can  thus  consistently  secure  a  sufficiently  greater  good  to  justify 
the   self-sacrifice.      Instead^    therefore,   of  substitutional   suffering, 


244  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

which,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  is  expiatory,  "caring  never 
for  the  morality  or  justice  of  what  is  gained,"  it  is  precisely  this  that 
it  does  care  for;  and  instead  of  its  being  "fairly  unmoral,"  not  only 
is  it  consummately  moral,  but  forgiveness  of  sinners  without  it  would 
be,  not  merely  ujwwral,  but  utterly  immoral.  It  would  be  a  violation 
of  the  law,  of  all  moral  nature,  God's  included,  and  an  absolute  in- 
justice to  Himself  and  all  holy  beings  forever.  "  He  must  accept 
the  pains  of  the  good  " — that  is,  of  Himself  in  Christ,  "in  payment 
of  the  pains  of  the  bad" — that  is,  of  human  sinners,  and  vmst  be 
"intent  on  getting,"  not  "His  modicum,"  but  the  full_eg^uivalent  of 
them,  or  the  following  alternative  is  before  Him:  He  must  Himself 
commit  infinite  sin  by  His  utterly  immoral,  unjust  course  towards 
them  as  sinners  against  Himself  and  all  holy  beings:  For  next  in 
necessity  and  importance  to  the  holy  love  of  which  they  have  rob- 
bed Him  and  them,  in  order  to  secure  the  greatest  possible  good  to 
Himself  and  them,  are  the  pains  of  retributive  justice,  which, 
although  so  lightly  spoken  of  by  those  who  make  morality,  whether 
conceived  as  mere  sentimental  love  or  as  so-called  right,  simply  a 
personal  matter,  are  due  by  justice  to  Him  and  them,  and  are  irre- 
pressibly  demanded  by  universal  conscience,  when  the  case  is  seen 
as  it  is.  As  to  the  objection,  that  these  pains  "take  clean  away  the 
word  and  fact  of  forgiveness,"  it  is  made  on  the  assumption  that 
there  can  be  no  provisional,  conditional  substitution,  designed  to  be 
made  an  actual  one  for  those  only  who  comply  with  its  conditions, 
and  then  receive  forgiveness  on  the  ground  of  it — the  forgiveness 
making  it  actual — that  there  can  be  none  which  is  not,  in  and  of 
itself,  unconditionally  actual.  If  it  is  provisional,  an  offered  one  on 
compliance  with  the  prescribed  moral  condition,  to  be  made  actual 
to  all  who  do  comply,  the  objection  is  a  birth,  of  which  its  parent 
should  be  profoundly  ashamed.*  Substiiutioti  does  not  imply  that 
Christ  suffered  the  aggregate  amount  of  inflicted  pains  deserved  by  alt 
hiima?i  sinners.  His  sufferings  would  neither  have  been  increased 
nor  diminished,  if  mankind  had  been  a  millionfold  more  or  less 
numerous  than  they  will  be.  They  must  be  of  infinite  value  to  save 
one;  they  can  have  no  more,  less,  or  different  value  to  save  myriads, 
billions,  or  all.  /  By  His  one  righteous  act  {JUiKaiutia,  Rom.  5:18), 
of  offering  Himself  an  expiatory  sacrifice  for  all  men  our  Lord 
pote7itially  set  aside  conditionally  the  condemnation  of  all  and  made 
all  righteous  (Rom.  5:19).  This  act  had  an  unlimited,  eternal,  in- 
finite value,  and  could  have  no  less,  because  of  the  Divine  nature.^ 

(*)  See  places  indicated  on  preceding  page. 


BUSIINELDS  ASSAULTS  GROU?/DLESS,.  245 

relations,  and  character  of  its  actor;  because  it  was  devised  and 
designed  by  the  infinite  wisdom  of  Godhead  as  the  best,  if  not  the 
only  one,  possible  to  attain  the  necessary  ends  and  means  for  human 
salvation4-those  on  the  side  of  God,  those  on  the  side  of  man,  those 
on  the  side  of  the  universal  and  eternal  holy  society,  those  on  the 
side  of  justice  and  law,  and  those  on  the  side  of  mercy  and  grace; 
and  because,  by  it,  as  the  acme  and  consummation  of  His  whole 
mission.  He  made  God  known,  not  to  man  only,  but  to  "the  princi- 
palities and  the  powers  in  the  heavenly  places,"  in  His  full-orbed 
character,  glory,  and  all  moral  perfections,  as  was  necessary  to 
secure  its  ends  (Eph.  3:9,  10).  This  substitutional,  expiatory,  right- 
eous act  of  Christ,  having  this  infinite  value  is  provisional  for  all 
human  sinners,  but  made  actual  only  for  those  who  appropriate  it 
by  faith,  and  thus  receive  forgiveness  "through  His  blood"  shed  in 
it./  How,  then,  is  there  any  validity  in  the  old,  effete  objection  of 
infidels,  Socinians,  and  other  misbelievers  on  this  essential  point, 
that  expiation  by  the  substituted  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ 
"  takes  clean  away  the  word  and  fact  of  forgiveness;  for,  if  the  debt 
of  sin  is  paid,  there  is  no  longer  anything  to  forgive?"  A  debt 
provisionally  paid  for  one  or  many  by  another  on  a  stated  condition, 
is  actually  paid  when  the  condition  is  fulfilled,  not  before;  and  then 
its  payment  is  a  fact;  and,  when  the  required  ethical  condition  of 
faith  is  fulfilled  by  any  one,  God  makes  the  provisional  substitution 
of  Christ  actual  for  him  by  forgiving  him  on  the  ground  of  it — that 
is,  by  applying  it  to  him.  But  the  last  of  these  objections  is  worthy 
of  its  forerunners,  and  runs  thus: — "substituting  government  also 
by  a  kind  of  proceeding  that  has  no  relation  whatever  to  conscience 
and  right."  Just  the  contrary!  Maintaining  it  absolutely  inviolate 
and  unimpaired  in  the  very  respect  in  which  it  is  always  liable  to 
subversion  and  destruction — that  is,  by  not  giving  up  a  jot  or  tittle 
of  its  fundamental  principle  of  justice,  even  when  moved  by  urging 
mercy,  for  to  do  that  would  be  radically  immoral,  but  by  Himself 
meeting  and  satisfying  its  retributive  demands  against  mankind  by 
suffering  in  their  stead,  provisionally  for  all,  to  become  actually  for 
as  many  as  fulfill  the  conditions  of  the  substitution,  which  was  to 
harmonize  forgiveness  on  the  prescribed  conditions  with  the  main- 
tenance of  unimpaired  moral  government.  His  doing  this  from 
pure  rnercy  to  sinners,  that  they  might  escape  the  punishment  de- 
served by  their  sins,  was  the  peerless  "proceeding"  or  "righteous 
act,"  even  of  Himself,  in  its  intrinsic  moral  excellence  and  grandeur, 
and  in  its  perfect  and  supreme  "relation  to  conscience  and  right" 


246  THE  ATONEME.VT  OF  CHRIST. 

or  justice — was  one  the  equal  of  which  the  universe  will  never  see 

again,  and  one  before  which  its  unanimous   conscience  will  forever 

pour  forth  its  delighted  approbation  and  applause. 

"  In  love  immense,  inviolably  just! 

Thou,  ratlier  than  thy  justice  should  be  stain'd, 
Didst  stain  the  cross;  and  work  of  wonders  far 
The  greatest,  that  thy  dearest  far  might  bleed." 

—  Young,  Night  IV. 

§  134.    HOW  THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST  FOR  MANKIND  MEET  AND  STAY 
THE  DEMANDS  OF  JUSTICE  AGAINST   THEM. 

The  substituted  suffering  of  Christ,  the  Divinely  constituted 
representative  of  our  sinful  race,  propitiates  God  towards  them,  be- 
cause it  expiates  their  guilt — that  is,  because  it  provisionally  meets 
and  suspends  the  demand  of  God's  retributive  justice  against  them, 
provisionally  for  all,  actually  for  all  of  them  who  appropriate  it,  and 
thus  gives  full  flow  to  the  abundance  of  His  mercy  and  grace 
towards  them.  This  demand  of  His  justice  is  in  Scripture  com- 
monly called  His  wrath  (^opyv);  but  it  is  utterly  to  mistake  its 
meaning,  to  suppose  it  to  be  that  His  infinite  sensibility  is  excited 
to  mere  angry  emotion  or  passion  against  sinners,  and  that  it  is 
entirely  optional  with  Him  whether  He  will  gratify  it  by  punishing 
them,  or  suppress  it,  as  best  He  may,  and  inflict  no  punishment, 
being  controlled  by  nothing  but  His  simple  will.  To  conceive  it  so 
is  to  exclude  both  it  and  God's  action  relative  to  it  entirely  from 
the  sphere  of  morality,  and  to  make  that  action  merely  a  thing  of 
caprice.  That  His  sensibility  is  occupied  with  emotions  of  holy 
anger  against  all  sinners  we  hold  true;  but  His  wrath  against  them 
is  vastly  different  from  these.  It  is  the  demand  oi  His  infinite  moral 
nature  evoked  by  their  sin  that  they  shall  suffer  the  just  penalty  they 
deserve.  It  is  the  correlative  of  the  like  demand  of  it  aroused  by 
the  obedience  of  those  who  have  never  sinned,  that  they  shall  re- 
ceive the  reward  they  deserve;  though  in  their  case  they  have  a 
right  to  their  rev/ard,  while  sinners  have  none  to  their  punishment, 
God  and  His  loyal  universe  having  it.'''  His  wrath,  being  this 
demand  of  His  nature  or  moral  reason  for  the  punishment  of  sin- 
ners as  they  deserve  is  not  mere  angry  emotions,  nor  any  state  at 
the  mere  option  of  His  will  for  keeping  or  suppressing.  But,  because 
He  and  His  holy  universe  have  the  right  to  their  penal  suffering, 

(""■)  For  a  few  out  of  scores  of  passages  concerning  God's  opyi/,  wraih,  see 
the  following: — Mat.  37;  Luke  3:7;  John  3:36;  Rom.  i:iS;  2:5,6,8,9;  3:5;  4:15; 
5:9;  9:22;  13:4,5;  Eph.  2:3;  5:6;  Col.  3:6;  I.  Thess.  i:io;  2:16;  5:9;  Heb.  3:11;  4:3; 
Rev.  6:16,  17;  14:10;  16:19;  19:15. 


SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  247 

thus  demanded,  He,  as  Ruler,  has  none  to  exempt  them  from  it, 
without  or  on  condition  of  repentance  alone,  regardless  of  that 
demand.  But  He  has  an  absolute  right,  moved  by  His  mercy 
towards  them,  to  suffer  it  Himself  as  a  substitute  for  them,  as  ex- 
plained, and  thus  to  expiate  it.  Having  thus  met  and  satisfied  this 
demand  against  them,  called  opvi,  wratit,  by  anthropopathic  figure. 
He  is,  ipso  facto,  propitiated  and  reconciled  potentially  to  all, 
and  actually  to  all  who  fulfill  the  prescribed  conditions.  Thus  His 
mercy  and  grace  are  set  free  to  act  towards  all  without  any  hin- 
drance whatever,  except  what  they  themselves  make.  Justice  is  per- 
fectly maintained  and  established  inviolate  forever,  while  mercy  and 
grace  are  at  perfect  liberty  to  act  in  harmony  with  it  for  the  recon- 
ciliation of  as  many  as  possible  of  mankind  to  God.  Such  being 
the  nature  of  God's  wrath  and  of  expiation  and  propitiation,  and  the 
mode  in  which  these  two  essentially  identical  modifications  of  the 
mind  and  moral  relations  of  God  towards  mankind  are  effected,  we 
see  that  there  is  nothing  arbitrary  or  capricious  in  them;  no  devia- 
tion from,  or  disregard  of,  the  demands  of  His  own  eternal,  immut- 
able, archetypal,  moral  nature,  and  of  all  finite  ones  created  by  Him 
in  His  own  image;  no  acting  as  if  there  were  no  moral  system  and 
no  social-moral  nexus  of  justice,  the  granite  foundation  and  constit- 
uent of  that  system  of  mutual  rights,  dues,  obligations,  responsi- 
bilities, accountabilities,  interests,  and  concerns,  binding  all  moral 
beings  to  each  other  and  to  God;  no  immoral  acting  as  if  sin  were 
not  positive  wrong  and  injury  to  Himself  and  all,  the  one  blight  and 
curse  of  the  rational  universe,  but  a  mere  personal  concern  of  the 
sinner,  who,  therefore,  instead  of  being  subjected  to  the  infliction  of 
the  social-moral  penalty  he  deserves,  should  be  regarded  by  God 
and  all  others  with  yearning  sympathy  for  being  encircled  by  the 
tightening,  injuring,  often  ruinous  coils  of  the  train  of  its  natural 
consequences,  thus  making  it  socially  an  utter  trifle,  and  personally 
a  comparatively  diminutive  evil;  and  no  like  acting  as  if  obedience 
were  of  correspondingly  meager  importance.  All  diuiiniition  o'f  the 
badness  and  f:;iiilt  of  sin  is  equally  of  the  excellence  and  good-desert  of 
obedience.  But,  in  this  essentially  united  pair,  expiation  and  pro- 
pitiation, we  see  God  maintaining  the  great  social-moral  law  in  His 
own  and  all  other  moral  natures  with  its  immutable  quality  of  justice 
in  absolute  integrity,  and  harmonizing  His  mercy  towards  human 
sinners  with  the  whole  social  demand  of  that  justice  against  them 
by  an  infinite  self-sacrifice  in  their  stead,  thus  acting  a  style  of  moral 
greatness,  the  grandeur  and  glory  of  which  are  without  parallel  or 


248  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

approximation  in  all  else  ever  done,  not  by  creatures  only,  but  even 
by  Him  in  all  His  eternal  activity. 

§  135.    DUSHNELL'S    NO'lION    OF    PROPITIATION  A  PRODIGIOUS    CONCEIT, 
ANTI-MORAL,  AND  DEROGATORY  TO  GOD. 

Instead  of  this  essentially  united  pair  achieved  by  substitution, 
a  prodigious  conceit  of  the  latter  has  been  set  forth.  In  it,  expia- 
tion is  discarded  as  a  heathenish  perversion  and  superstition,  and  a 
propitiation  without  it  imagined.  When  it  is  denied  that  there  is 
any  demand  of  justice  as  retributive  in  God's  nature  or  law,  and 
that  Christ  suffered  instead  of  sinners  to  meet  and  satisfy  it,  of 
course  propitiation  can  have  no  real  relation  to  God's  moral  nature, 
and  must  relate  simply  to  His  sensibility  as  aroused  to  angry  emo- 
tion against  them — that  is,  to  mere  emotional  wrath  or  passion, 
which  is  not  moral,  because  it  is  involuntary  and  may  be  complied 
with  or  resisted  at  option.  It  is  not  a  moral  state  or  requirement 
of  any  kind,  and  puts  no  obligation  whatever  upon  Him  to  act 
according  to  it;  and  it  can  have  no  moral  quality  or  principle  in  it 
more  than  there  is  in  such  wrath  or  passion  in  man.  In  this  con- 
ceit, too,  God  is  not  regarded  as  Ruler,  having  all  the  rights,  dues, 
interests,  and  concerns  of  the  universal  and  eternal  society  in  His 
keeping,  so  that  He  is  responsible  for  them,  nor  as  being  sinned 
against  as  such,  but  merely  as  a  Person  without  official  relations  and 
responsibilities.  Nor  are  sinners  regarded  as  having  sinned  against 
Him  as  a  Ruler,  and  with  Him  against  that  whole  society,  to  the 
irreparable  damage  of  its  everlasting  good,  thus  subjecting  them- 
selves to  the  demand  of  His  retributive  justice  according  to  the  ill- 
deserts  of  their  sin  against  both  Him  as  Ruler  and  that  society  as 
subject  to  Him;  but  only  as  having  individually  sinned  against  Him 
alone.  Both  He  and  each  sinner  towards  whom  He  is  to  be  propiti- 
ated are  regarded  wholly  aside  from  governmental  or  even  social 
relations,  obligations,  and  justice.*  This  itself  brands  the  notion  as 
utterly  false.  As  He  is  in  and  Ruler  of  the  universal  moral  society 
and  system.  He  can  have  no  right  so  to  act. 


(■"■)  "The  forgiveness  of  sins,  already  considered  in  the  Chapter  on  Forgive- 
ness and  Piopilialion,  is  a  purely  personal  matter,  in  which  the  Fatherhood  love 
and  feeling  and  the  ollended  holiness  of  (lod  are  concerned.  The  proceeding 
here  is  intelligible  and  simple,  because  the  forgiveness  in  question  is  to  be  a  strictly 
Personal  Settlement,  that  and  that  only."  Forgiveness  and  Law,  Chap.  II., 
p.  93- 


GOD'S  ANGER  AT  SINNERS.  249 

§  136.    ON  HIS  GROUNDS,  GOD'S  ANGER  AT,  AND  NEED  OF  PROPITIATION 
TOWARDS,  SINNERS  REASONLESS. 

Add  now,  that  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  are  held  in  this 
notion  to  be  its  only  penalty,  unless  the  exclusion  of  its  incorrigible 
actors  from  association  with  the  holy  is  considered  a  positive  one; 
so  that  God  will  inflict  no  positive  punishment  additional  to  this 
upon  any.  It  is  in  connection  with  such  notions  that  God  is  con- 
ceived to  be  emotionally,  even  passionately  angry  at  human  sinners. 
Why?  Not  because,  according  to  these  notions,  they  are  guilty  of 
any  injustice  against  Himself  and  the  universal  society — that  is,  of 
withholding  or  taking  from  Him  and  it  anything  which  was  due  by 
right  to  them;  and  consequently  not  because  they  deserve  a  corre- 
sponding infliction  of  punitive  justice,  to  be  suffered  by  them  as  due 
by  right  to  Him  and  it — that  is,  not  because  there  is  any  real  jus- 
tice, ethical,  or  retributive,  in  His  own  or  other  moral  natures,  in 
the  law  in  and  from  them,  or  in  His  government,  any  natural  de 
mand  for  the  positive  punishment  of  sinners  any  more  than  for  that 
of  sick  people.  Why,  then,  should  He  be  angry  at  them  at  all? — 
we  mean  especially,  in  any  sense  implying  the  least  disposition  to 
inflict  punishment  upon  them  ?  We  can  see  that,  because  they  have 
trampled  on  the  so-called  idea  of  right  in  them,  and  so  greatly 
debased  themselves,  although  this  is  only  a  matter  personal  to  them- 
selves, God  has  good  reason  to  regard  them  as  perverse,  foolish 
mean,  and  contemptible,  and  to  be  revolted  and  disgusted  at  them. 
But  why  He  "should  be  put  in  arms  against  wrong-doers  by  His 
moral  disgusts,  displeasures,  abhorrences,  indignations,  revulsions," 
so  that,  "  by  force  of  these  recalcitrant  sentiments.  He  is  so  far  shut 
back  in  the  sympathies  of  His  love,  that  He  can  nerve  Himself  to 
the  severities  of  His  government  so  long  as  such  severities  are 
wanted" — how  "  He  is  not  less  perfect  because  these  antagonistic 
sentiments  are  in  Him,  but  even  more  perfect  than  He  would  be 
without  them,"  and  "yet  a  propitiation  be  required,  not  because 
they  are  bad,  but  only  to  move  them  aside  when  they  are  not 
wanted  " — none  of  this  can  we  see,  make  what  optical  effort  we  can; 
nor  do  we  think  any  one  else  can,  even  the  keen-eyed  Uriel  stand- 
ing in  the  Sun.  The  so-called  sentiments  named  recalcitrant,  an- 
tagonistic, unreducible,  obstructive,  and  what  not,  are  not  properly 
sentiments  at  all,  but  simply  emotions,  feelings,  states  of  sensibility 
of  different  qualities  and  degrees  of  antipathy  and  aversion;  and 
there  is  nothing  in  them  to  antagonize  or  obstruct  any  proper  sym- 
pathies of  His  love  towards  them,  nothing  to  put  Him  in  arms 


250  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

against  them,  or  to  constitute  even  real  anger,  nuich  less  wrath.  It 
would  be  impious  to  suppose  that  in  Him,  the  absolutely  perfect 
One,  they  could  possibly  be  or  become  over-measured  or  excessive, 
or  that  they  are  not,  and  must  not  always  be,  precisely  fitting  and 
what  they  should  be  towards  every  sinner;  and  as  long  as  sinners 
remain  such,  we  deny  that  He  could  move  them  aside,  if  He  would, 
or  ought  to,  if  He  could.  The  only  thing  which  can  possibly  move 
them  "aside  is  not  any  so-called  propitiation  of  Himself  towards 
them,  but  their  true  return  to  obedience;  and  therefore,  the  necessity 
and  fact  of  expiation  being  denied,  propitiation  is  neither  neces- 
sary nor  possible;  and  the  whole  notion  of  God's  propitiating 
Himself  tov/ards  sinners  by  going  to  cost  and  sacrifice  for  them  to 
quell  or  soothe  His  emotional  passion  against  them,  is  of  such  stuff 
as  is  made  up  of  the  vainest  kind  ot  dreams. 

§  137.    THE  MODE  OF    GOD'S    SELF-PROPITIATION    STATED    IS    SELF-CON- 
TRADICTORY AND  RIDICULOUS. 

VV'e  are  told  that,  "  We  do  not  ourselves  go  into  sacrifice  for  our 
enemy  to  gain  or  soften  ourselves,  but  only  to  help  him  in  his 
trouble,  and  to  minister  to  his  bad  mind  in  ways  that  may  gain  him 
to  repentance;  everything  v/e  do  and  suffer  is  for  his  benefit,  or  for 
effect  on  him,  only  it  results  that  our  sacrifice  affects  our  mind  or 
disposition  also  towards  him.  We  are  in  a  way  of  being  completely 
reconciled  to  him,  as  we  hope  he  sometime  will  be  to  us.  The  stress 
of  all  we  do  or  suffer  is  for  him,  and  in  that  consciousness  it  is  that 
we  are  atoned,  having  all  our  aversions,  disgusts,  and  condemnations 
liquified,  or  dissolved  away."  This  is  designed  to  represent  God's 
going  to  cost  and  sacrifice  for  sinners;  and  observe,  that  He  has  no 
purpose  luhatever  in  the  proceding  to  propitiate  Himself  towards  them, 
His  wJiole  aim  being  to  propitiate  them  to  Himself.  But  now  look  at 
this — "The  propitiation  itself  proceeds  from  His  love  and  is  only 
designed  to  work  on  other  unreducible  sentiments  that  hinder  His 
love  in  forgiveness  it  might  otherwise  bestow.  Our  own  love,  as  we 
saw,  might  be  sufficient,  if  it  were  not  hindered  by  certain  collateral, 
obstructive  sentiments,  and  God  is  in  this  moral  analogy  with  us." 
Then  follows  what  is  quoted  above,  ending  with  the  statement  that  "  a 
propitiation  is  required,  not  because  "  [the  antagonistic  sentiments 
in  him]  "are  bad,  but  only  to  move  them  aside  when  they  are 
not  wanted."  How  this  and  that  agree  !  Designed  to  ivork  on  other 
unredueible  sentiments  that  hinder,  etcA  "  Our  love  hindered  by,  etc., 
and  God  in  this  moral  analogy  with  us !     A  propitiation  required 


GOD'S  SELF-PROPITIATION.  251 

to  vwve  them  aside!  Then  God  did  design  to  gain  and  soften  Him- 
self and  to  remove  the  hindrance  of  certain  collateral,  obstructive 
sentiments,  and  a  propitiation  was  required  io  move  aside  the  antag- 
onistic sentiments  in  Him!  Could  He,  in  His  high  morality,  comjjly 
with  the  requirement  without  designing  to  ?  This  against  that,  in 
which  self-propitiation  is  not  designed  at  all,  and  if  it  comes,  it  is 
only  as  an  incidental  result  ! — also  against  that,  as  all  the  words, 
mitigating,  mollifying,  assiiaging,  liquifying,  dissolving,  and  bathing 
His  feelings  till  they  no  longer  obstruct,  plainly  show.  But,  whether 
merely  incidental  or  designed  matters  not;  the  notion  that  God  pro- 
pitiates Himself  towards  sinners  in  the  way  asserted  is  preposterous 
— especially  so,  the  notion  that  He  designed  thus  to  propitiate  Him- 
self. We  have  shown  above  that  His  feelings  towards  sinners  are 
precisely  what  they  should  be  till  they  repent,  and  that,  under  all 
the  assumed  conditions,  there  is  nothing  whatever  in  Him  to  be 
propitiated  towards  them.  His  self-propitiation,  in  any  such  way, 
therefore,  whether  merely  incidental  or  designed,  is  not  among  pos- 
sible things.  But  on  supposition  that  it  was  designed,  His  thought 
would  run  thus:  "  I  have  antagonistic,  recalcitrant  feelings  against 
these  sinners,  which  are  unreducible  by  my  holy  will.  They  shut 
back  the  sympathies  of  my  love  from  them,  and  thus,  blocking  up 
my  way,  hinder  me  from  exercising  towards  them  the  love  in  for- 
giveness I  otherwise  might.  I  am  not  less  perfect  because  of  them; 
but  even  more  perfect  than  I  would  be  without  them;  and  yet  I 
must  be  propitiated,  to  move  them  aside,  because  they  are  not 
wanted.  They  are  not  bad,  but  they  are  not  good,  because  they 
shut  back  the  sympathies  of  my  love  from  sinners;  and  yet  they  do 
not  hinder  me  from  doing  all  I  possibly  could  for  them,  if  I  did  not 
have  them.  For,  urged  by  these  sympathies,  I  have  been,  not  merely 
in  the  time-sufferings  of  Christ,  but  eternally  putting  myself  to 
infinite  cost  and  tragic  sacrifice  for  sinners;  yet  not  for  them  as  my 
direct  end,  but  to  reduce  and  move  aside  my  unreducible,  obstruc- 
tive feelings,  antagonistic  to  my  loving  them  in  forgiveness,  so  that 
I,  more  perfect  with,  than  I  would  be  without  them,  may,  with  my 
perfection  thus  diminished,  be  propitiated  towards  them,  and  into 
greater  perfection;  and,  when  I  succeed  in  getting  myself  propiti- 
ated, which  I  have  been  eternally  endeavoring  to  accomplish,  then 
all  my  going  to  cost  and  sacrifice  will  cease,  and  thence  forward  all 
my  sympathies  and  love  will  be  at  full  liberty  without  cost,  although 
then  there  will  be  no  sinners  to  expend  them  upon  !  As  soon  as  L 
get  propitiated,  my  being  so  will  be  useless."     If  the  miniature  copy 


252  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

is  not  fascinating  with  beauty,  we  believe  it  is  essentially  faithful  to 
its  original ! 

§   I3S.    THIS  MODE  NOT  ACCORDING   TO  ANALOGIES    IN    HUMAN  EXPERI- 
ENCE. 

But  this  conception  of  the  matter,  we  are  told,  "is  according  to 
analogies  in  our  human  sentiment  and  practice."  That  there  are 
analogies  in  these  to  some  of  the  feelings  and  actions  ascribed  to 
God  in  the  notions  we  have  been  examining  is  admitted;  but  they 
have  no  more  to  do  with  propitiation,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the 
term,  than  had  the  ancient  warriors  around  Troy.  No  sane  human 
being  ever  thought  of  going  into  cost-making  and  sacrifice  for  ene- 
mies, injurerc,  or  any  wrong-doers  for  the  purpose  of  thus  propiti- 
ating himself  towards  then-— of  thus  mitigating,  smoothing,  soothing, 
masterin:-,  or  call  it  by  what  v/ord  or  words  you  will,  his  indig- 
nations, revulsions,  disgusts,  animosities;  or  did  not  act  a  perfectly 
foolish  and  ridiculous  part,  if  he  did;  for  he  must  have  been  saying 
to  himself  all  the  time — "I  am  trying  to  cheat  both  those  I  am  pro- 
fessing to  act  for  and  myself — them,  by  seeming  to  make  their  good 
my  end,  when  I  am  not  in  fact;  myself,  by  trying  thus  to  cool  down 
and  work  off  my  exorbitant  irritation  or  angry  emotion  or  passion, 
rowing  one  way  and  looking  another."  It  would  be  a  kind  of  double 
imposture,  having  no  relish  of  true  virtue  in  it  and  more  likely  to 
make  matters  worse  in  both  directions  than  better.  It  seems  hardly 
possible  that  he  should  not  laugh  at  himself  in  consciousness  of  his 
tricky  maneuver.  But,  if  he  goes  to  cost  and  sacrifice  for  his  ene- 
mies or  other  evil-doers,  not  for  the  purpose  of  operating  any  mod- 
ification in  his  own  feelings  against  them,  even  though  to  do  so  he 
must  resolutely  resist  or  subdue  them,  but  with  a  pure  design  to  do 
them  good  and  to  please  God,  then  his  endeavor  is  to  propitiate 
them,  and  himself  not  at  all;  an  1  if  the  idea  of  propitiation  enters 
his  mind,  he  knows  that  it  is  to  be  wrought  in  them,  not  in  himself. 
He  is  simply  acting  benevolently  towards  them  in  spite  of  his  feel- 
ings, and  doing  nothing  else.  This  whole  conception,  therefore,  of 
man  or  of  God  propitiating  himself,  in  the  sense  of  allaying  or  miti- 
gating in  any  way  his  own  mere  feelings  or  so-called  sentiments  of 
any  kind  or  degree  against  others,  by  any  process  whatever  of  going 
to  cost  or  sacrifice  for  them,  whether  designed  to  produce  that  per- 
sonal effect  or  not,  is  as  baseless  and  wild  a  fiction  as  was  ever 
invented;  and  considering  all  the  incongruities,  unwarranted  assump- 
tio:;s,  illogical  reasonings,  misapplications  of  Scriptures,  uses  of 


CONCEITS  ABOUT  THE   TKIN/TV.  353 

terms  and  phrases  in  new  or  changed  meanings,  the  lavish  garniture 
of  language  and  imagery  clothing  the  whole  congeries,  and  the  so- 
called  head  of  propitiation  set  on  such  a  body,  we  think  the  lines  ot 
Horace  at  the  beginning  of  his  Ars  Poetica  most  fittingly  dcscrii)- 
tive  ol  it:  — 

"  Iluinano  capiti  cervicem  pictor  equinam 
Jungeie  si  velit,  et  varias  inducere  plumas 
Undique  coUntis  membris,  iit  turpiter  atrum 
Desinat  in  piscem  mulier  formosa  superne, 
Spectatum  admissi  risum  teneatis,  amici? 
Credite,  Pisones,  isti  tabulae  fore  libriim 
Persimilem,  cujus,  veliit  aegri  somnia,  vanac 
Fingentur  species;  ut  nee  pes,  nee  caput  uni 
Reddatur  formai. "* 

§  139.    CORRELATED  CONCEITS  ABOUT  THE  TRINITY,  THE  TEDIUM   OF  AN 
UNTRAGIC  WORLD,  THE    PROPITIATION  ETERNAL,  E'J'C. 

But  when,  to  carry  out  this  conceit  of  propitiation,  it  is  said 
concerning  the  Tiinity  of  Persons  in  the  Divine  nature — "  The  llircc 
are  still  one,  and  the  three-folding  is.  but  a  plural  in  so  many  finilc 
forms,  used  representatively  as  personations  of  the  Infinite  One;  " 
and  that — "when  these  grammatic  personalities  are  all  resolved  into 
their  representative  import,  (lod  is  one,  only  so  much  belter 
known:" — when,  to  jump  the  difficulty  that  this  notion  of  jiropitia- 
tion  "  requires  us  to  be  not  only  well-doers,  but  atoners  also,''  it  is 
said — "there  is  no  imaginable  world,  lam  quite  sure,  that  has  a 
thousandth  part  of  the  tedium  in  it  which  one  would  have  that  is 
wholly  made  up  of  delectations.  Insipid,  uneventful,  flat,  with  no 
great  sentiments  in  it,  no  heroic  side  in  duty,  nothing  heroic  any- 
where, nothing  to  condemn  that  touches  us,  nothing  to  forgive 
because  we  are  not  touched — why,  such  a  world  would  even  die  of 
inanity.  No,  let  us  have  tragedy,  and  a  strong,  large  mixture  of 
it" — [/.  e.,  a  world  of  universal  holiness  would  be  insipid,  etc.,  and 
one  of  sin,  such  as  ours,  incomparably  preferable]  : — When  it  is  said 
that — "  the   propitiation,    so-called,   is   not  a  fact    accomplished  in 

i'"'}    Translated: — 

If  to  a  human  head  a  painter  will'd 
To  join  an  equine  neck,  and  to  bring  in 
On  members  drawn  from  creatures  ev'rywherc 
Soft  feathers  var-ious,  that  a  woman  fan- 
Above  in  a  black  fish  should  end  ;  could  you, 
My  friends,  allow'd  the  sight,  your  laughter  hold  ? 
Believe  me,  Pisos,  that  a  book  would  be 
Much  like  this  picture,  as  its  meanings  all. 
Like  sick  men's  dreams,  would  quite  be  figur'd  false; 
That  neither  foot,  nor  head  could  be  reduc'd 
To  one  sole  form. 


254  THE  AT0NEMEN2'  OF  CHRIST. 

time,  but  an  historic  matter  represented  in  that  way,  to  exhibit  the 
interior,  ante-mundane,  eternally  proceeding  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb 
that  was  slain  before  the  foundation  of  the  world:" — When  many 
other  such  follies,  alien  to  "  the  glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed  God" 
are  advanced  as  correlates  or  essential  implications  of  this  other 
gospel;  such  as  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  its  only  penalty; 
justification,  of  course,  not  pardon  or  remission  of  penalty,  but  reno- 
vation of  character;  God  has  a  moral  government  and  yet  forgive- 
ness and  propitiation  a  purely  personal  matter  between  God  and 
each  sinner;  and  justice  made  a  thing  of  Divine  will  and  institution, 
and  therefore  of  mere  option  as  mercy  is,  instead  of  being  an  eternal, 
immutable  quality  of  the  Divine  nature  and  the  law  in  and  from  it; 
— we  answer  that  this  fancied  propitiation  and  all  its  cognate  no- 
tions are  cockatrice's  eggs  instead  of  transcendant  truths  of  inspired 
revelation.  And,  when  we  hear  "  of  the  religious  benefits  to  be  ex- 
pected from  the  worthier  and  better  ideal  conceptions  of  God  that 
will,  of  course,  go  with  it  and  keep  it  company,"  while  dissenting 
entirely  from  the  utterance  and  marveling  at  the  self-delusion,  we 
nevertheless  enter  ourselves  without  cost  or  sacrifice  sympathetically 
into  the  hope  of  a  veteran,  who,  measuring  what  he  has  done  by 
what  he  wished  to  do,  fed  himself  with  its  honied,  though  delusive 
promises.  Intention  and  effort  are  the  root  of  hope;  but  not  of 
truth,  nor  of  its  realization. 

§  140.    RECONCILIATION  OF  GOD  TO  MAN — OF  HIM  FIRST  IN  ORDER — OF 
MAN  AS  A  CONSEQUENCE  OF  HIS  TO  MAN. 

We  can  now  easily  understand  the  matter  of  reconciliatio7i  be- 
tween God  and  man;  for  it  is  certainly  mutual.  On  the  side  of  God, 
there  is  wrath — the  demand  of  punitive  justice  aroused  in  Him 
against  sinners  by  their  sins.  It  is  not  mere  angry  feeling  or  pas- 
sion, although  this  in  perfect  measure  is  of  course  connected  with 
it.  It  is  not  enmity  against  sinners;  for  God  never  was  capable  of  a 
malign  disposition  towards  any  being.  It  is  not  something  which 
by.  mere  will  He  can  disregard  or  not  at  option.  It  is  not  a  demand 
which  relates  simply  to  Himself,  but  is  social,  as  all  justice  is,  and 
concerns  also  the  entire  and  eternal  universal  society.  It  is  an  im- 
mutable, indefeasible  demand  of  his  eternal,  spiritual  nature,  which 
must  be  met,  because  it  guards  and  enforces  the  love  which  is  the 
matter,  and  thus  secures  the  well-being  which  is  the  end  of  the  law, 
to  the  greatest  possible  extent  and  degree  in  the  universe.  Now, 
just  because  this  demand  is  uot  what  we  thus  deny,  and  is  what  we 


RECONCILIA  TION  OF  GOD  TO  MAN.  255 

thus  afifirm,  it  creates  no  hindrance  whatever  to  His  feeling  infinite 
compassion  {sympathy  is  not  the  accurate  word  to  express  it)  for 
them,  nor  to  His  infinite  merciful  love  (properly,  infinite  benevolence, 
as  He  can  have  no  other  quality  of  love  to  sinners),  from  tiie  utmost 
possible  exertion  to  save  them.    Accordingly,  that  infinite  compassion 
impelling,  that  exertion  of  His  infinite  benevolence  He  has  made, 
not  by  a  foolish  and  futile  effort  to  propitiate,  or  properly  to  con- 
ciliate His  irritated  feelings  towards  sinners,  but  by  assuming  the 
endurance  of  sufferings  of  infinite  \dlue,  potentially  instead  of  the 
penal  suffering  deserved  by  all  men,  and,  in  purpose,  actually  instead 
of  that  of  all  of  them   foreknown  as  receivers  of  the  substitution, 
thus  expiating   their   sins  by  Himself  fully  meeting  the  demand  of 
punitive  justice  against  them.     By  this  expiation,  made  by  Himself 
out  of  His  infinite  mercy  towards  them,  He  is  propitiated  towards 
all — i.  e.,  He  is  potentially  reconciled  to  all,  so  that  there  is  no  hin- 
drance whatever  in  Him  to  the  exercise  of   His  mercy  and  grace 
upon  and  for  them;  and  He  becomes  actually  reconciled  to  every 
one  of  them  whom  He  can  bring  by  this  exercise  to  become  recon- 
ciled to  Him.     Thus  the  fact  of  His  making  expiation  for  the  sins 
of  the  world  gives  the  highest  conceivable  conception  and  demon- 
stration of  His  merciful  love  or  benevolence  for  mankind,  and  of 
His  actually  going  to  infinite  cost  and  sacrifice  for  them — immeas- 
urably higher  than  the  poor,  meagre  notion  we  have  just  considered, 
or  than  any  other  whatever,  which  rejects  expiation  and  makes  it 
God's  whole  effort  merely  to  conciliate  and  reconcile  them  to  Him- 
self can  even   fairly  intimate.     The  puny  thing  is  unworthy  to  be 
thought  of  beside  it,  instead  of  being  paraded  in  competition.     By 
this  stupendous  self-sacrifice,  God   Himself  lifted   the  bar  of  holy 
punitive  justice,  demanded  by  His  own  and  all  rational  nature  not 
subverted,  out  of  the  way  of  the  goings  forth  of  His  infinite  mercy 
and  grace  towards  human  sinners,  not  only  to  confer  forgiveness 
upon  all  truly  repentant  of  them,  but  to  reconcile  them  to  Himself, 
to  do  the  utmost  possible  for  them  in  time,  to  perfect  and  aggran- 
dize their  whole  nature  through  death  and  the  resurrection,  and  to 
exalt  them  to  eternal  inheritance  and  glory  with  Christ  in  heaven. 
On  the  contrary,  the  attitude  of  our  world  of  sinners  towards  God 
is  one  of  positive,  amazing  enmity;  so  that,  while  in  Him  reconcili- 
ation to  them  is  accomplished  by  Himself  in  the  way  of  stupendous 
self-sacrifice  stated,  to  meet  and  remove  the  demand  of  justice  in 
His  own  eternal,  holy  nature  against  them,  in  them  it  is  giving  up 
that  enmity,  which  is  most  wantonly  against  nature,  and  the  most 


256  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

unreastDnable  ever  rooted  in  human  hearts.  While  in  Him  it  is  by 
a  self-moved  act  of  infinite  mercy  and  grace  towards  them,  /;/  them 
it  is  ceasing  from  this  infatuated  hostility  and  beginning  a  feeble 
reciprocation  of  His  measureless,  merciful,  prevenient  love  for  them, 
moving,  urging,  constraining  them  to  be  reconciled  to  Him  by  tliis 
transaction.  And  let  it  be  marked  well,  that  it  is  not  by  any  ante- 
mundane,  eternal  going  to  cost  and  sacrifice  for  these  enemies,  the 
supposition  of  which  has  no  foundation  whatever  in  truth,  and  is 
only  an  imaginary  invention  to  support  a  false  theory,  nor  by  doing 
the  same  for  them  in  time  either  before  or  since  the  atoning  suffer- 
ings and  death  of  Christ,  nor  anything  aside  from  these,  which  men 
have  asserted  or  imagined,  that  God  is  reconciling  the  world  to 
Himself;  but  it  is  precisely  in  and  by  the  fact  of  His  infinite  self- 
sacrifice  in  these,  to  expiate  their  sins  by  thus  meeting  in  their  stead, 
as  explained,  the  demand  against  them  of  the  holy  wrath  or  punitive 
justice  in  His  all-perfect  nature.  This  one  act  and  fact,  among  all 
ever  done  by  Him  in  His  eternal  activity  respecting  them  or  His 
universe  of  creatures,  is,  when  understood  and  realized  by  them,  the 
one  only  solvent  and  subduer  of  their  enmity  against  Him,  and  allure- 
ment of  them  into  love  in  return.  It  is  "Christ  crucified,"  and 
nothing  whatever  outside  of  that,  ante-mundane  or  in  time,  that  is 
"the  power  of  God,  and  the  wisdom  of  God"  for  reconciling  sin- 
ners. We  say,  when  understood  and  realized  by  them,  because 
neither  is  this  mighty  solvent  with  all  its  inexpressible  adaptations 
effectual;  of  itself,  to  reconcile  one  of  them,  though  taught  in  the 
best  possible  way  by  men  or  angels;  nor  is  Christ  by  all  He  became, 
suffered,  and  did,  taught  and  manifested  in  His  whole  earthly  mis- 
sion among  men,  nor  by  all  in  His  heavenly  mediation,  personally 
the  regenerator  and  reconciler  of  sinners  to  God.  In  no  passage 
of  Scripture  are  we  taught  that  He  is  such,  either  alone  or  jointly  with 
the  Spirit.  He  tells  us  Himself  that  "it  is  the  Spirit  that  quickens" 
or  makes  alive  (John  6:63);  and  we  are  so  instructed  throughout 
the  inspired  Word.  Without  His  renewing  operation  on  the  hearts 
of  men,  not  one  of  them  would  ever  be  reconciled  to  God;  and  in 
this,  as  in  all  other  respects,  the  so-called  moral  view  of  the  atone- 
ment utterly  breaks  down.  This  view  not  only  has  a  far  inferior 
conception  and  estimate,  compared  with  that  of  the  expiatory,  of 
the  adaptation  of  what  Christ  has  done  for  man,  but  also  of  the 
insusceptibility  of  sinners  to  its  power,  and  consequently  of  the 
absolute  need  of  the  agency  of  the  Spirit  to  induce  the  change  in 
their  mindS;  which  is  necessary  to  their  understanding  and  realizing 


RKCONCILIA  TION  OF  GOD   TO  MAN.  257 

what  He  has  done  and  manifested,  as  set  before  them,  and  to  show 
these  to  them  in  their  true  nature  and  import  in  such  a  manner  as 
will  make  them  effectual  to  win  their  faith  and  love.  The  truth  of 
the  case  is,  that  although  Christ  is  the  life,  and,  by  His  sufferings 
and  death  has  given  free  emission  to  it  and  created  the  greatest 
conceivable  inducements  to  lead  them  to  yield  their  opposition  and 
to  receive  it;  although,  in  view  of  all  that  the  (iospel  tells  us  con- 
cerning Him  and  His  mission,  there  seems  motive  and  influence 
enough  to  overcome  the  strongest  enmity  ever  intrenched  in  human 
hearts  against  God,  and  to  melt  and  prostrate  all  the  world  in  grate- 
ful, adoring,  all-absorbing  love  to  Him;  although,  if  facts  did  not 
demonstrate  the  contrary,  it  would  seem  utterly  impossible  that  any, 
to  whom  the  Gospel  has  been  declared,  should  continue  unsubdued; 
yet  such  is  the  hardness  of  heart  and  blindness  of  mind  induced  by 
sin,  that,  having  eyes  they  see  not,  having  ears  they  hear  not,  neither 
do  they  understand,  and  not  one  of  them  ever  would  be  reconciled, 
if  the  Holy  Spirit  did  not  perform  the  twofold  work  of  quickening 
them  within  and  of  taking  the  things  of  Christ  and  showing  Ihcm  to 
them  objectively  till  He  brings  them  to  realize  and  yield  to  their 
constraining  sway.  Christ  has  created  and  furnished  the  whole 
aggregate  of  objective  facts  and  truths,  motives  and  influences  which 
constitute  the  sum  of  the  Gospel,  and  which  alone  has  adaptation 
to  overcome  sinners  and  win  them  over  from  unbelief  to  conntlence, 
from  sin  to  loving  obedience,  from  enmity  to  reconciliation,  and  to 
cause  old  things  in  them  to  pass  away  and  all  things  to  become  new; 
but  the  Holy  Spirit  alone  can  bring  sinners  into  the  internal  condi- 
tion, and  place  this  sum  in  the  relation  to  them,  in  which  its  mighty 
adapted  power  can  work  its  proper  effect  upon  and  in  them.  It  is 
Christ  alone  who  creates  and  prepares  all  the  material  to  be  used 
in  constructing  a  new  spiritual  temple  in  a  human  soul;  but  it  is  the 
Holy  Spirit  alone  who  prepares  a  place  for  it  and  builds  the  edifice 
there  from  foundation  to  pinnacle  for  an  habitation  of  God.  He 
prepares  the  heart  for  the  new  structure  in  it  by  removing  its  wild- 
ness  and  disorder,  discordant  with  itself,  with  the  truth,  motives, 
and  influences  of  the  Gospel,  with  Christ,  with  the  law  and  will  of 
God,  with  the  intelligent  universe  and  its  good  and  with  God,  and 
thus  reconciles  it  to  all,  and  all  to  it,  on  earth  and  in  heaven;  and 
He  thus  makes  it  a  harmonious  dwelling-place  for  God. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  Atotiement;  its  exclusive  purpose;  what  not  implied  in  it; 
in  what  alone  it  consisted;  how  it  met  the  demands  of  justice;  and  love 
not  iji  its  nature  essentially  vicarious. 

"  Man  disobeying, 
Disloyal,  breaks  his  fealty,  and  sins 
Against  the  high  supremacy  of  heaven, 
Affecting  Godhead,  and,  so  losing  all, 
To  expiate  his  treason  hath  naught  left 
But  to  destruction  sacred  and  devote, 
He  with  his  whole  posterity  must  die. 
Die  he,  or  justice  must:  vinless  for  him 
Some  other  able,  and  as  willing,  pay 
The  I'igid  satisfaction,  death  for  death." 

— Par.  Lffstf  Book  III. ,  lines  2o£-2i5. 

§  141.   ATONEMENT  DEFINED,  AND  ITS  ONLY  DIRECT  END. 

The  offerings  of  animal  sacrifices,  prescribed  in  the  Theocratic 
Law  for  Israel,  to  be  made  for  its  transgressors  as  a  basis  for  their 
forgiveness  on  condition  of  repentance  and  confession  of  their  sins, 
were,  by  the  whole  nature  of  the  case.  Divinely  appointed  substitu- 
tions ot  the  animals  in  their  sufferings  and  deaths  for  them,  to  save 
them  from  the  penal  sufferings  and  death  which  that  law  required 
should  be  inflicted  upon  them  for  their  sins.  Their  forgiveness  or 
not  depended  on  the  offering  or  not  of  the  prescribed  sacrifices;  and 
thus  those  substitutions  demonstrate  that  God  can  and  does  act 
ethically  on  the  principle  of  substitution.  While  those  sacrifices 
were  valid  only  to  rescue  from  the  temporal  penalties  of  that  Law, 
they  were  designedly  typical  of  the  consummate  one  of  "the  Lamb 
of  God,  which  beareth  [not  taketh  away]  the  sin  of  the  world; "  and 
they  thus  demonstrate  that  God  acted  on  it  in  this. 

The  Hebrew  noun  and  verb  designating  the  designed  effect  and 
purpose  of  those  sacrifices  are,  literally  rendered,  cover  and  to 
cover;  but,  in  our  common  version,  they  are  rendered  atonement 
and  to  make  atonement  80  times,  and  49  times  by  nouns  and  verbs 
of  like  meaning;  and  the  word,  atonement,  has  uniformly  this  sub- 


LEVI  TIC AL  ATONEMENTS.  259 

stitutional  sense,  except  in  Rom.  5:11,  where  it  is  wrongly  used  to 
mean  reconciliation.  Hence,  in  theology,  this  term  is  used  in  this 
strictly  Scriptural  sense,  to  signify  that  Christ,  in  His  sufferiftgs  and 
death  for  mankind,  represented  and  was  a  substitute  for  them  as  sin- 
ners liable  to  suffer  retributive  punishment  for  their  sins  ift  this  life; 
or,  that  He  voluntarily  endured  them  as  substitutional,  or  vicarious  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  word,  for  the  punitive  sufferings  and  death  de- 
served by  them  and  demanded  by  the  justice  of  the  lazv  in  God  and  all 
other  moral  beings.  This  substitution  was  a  Divinely  designed  and 
adapted  provisory  substitution  for  them  all  as  sinners,  to  be  made 
actual  iox  as  many  of  them  as,  during  the  gracious  probation  of  this 
life  granted  with  it,  would  fulfill  the  necessary  ethical  conditions  of 
its  application  to  them  by  forgiveness,  and  for  all  who,  dying  before 
or  without  moral  action,  should  be  fitted  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  dwell 
forever  with  God  and  all  holy  beings.  As  the  animal  sacrifices  of 
the  Israelites  were,  when  connected  with  repentance,  a  cover  to 
shield  them  from  the  penalties  incurred  by  transgressions  of  the 
Theocractic  Law,  so  the  atoning  sacrifice  of  Christ  was  a  cover  to 
shield  all  brought  to  fulfill  the  requisite  ethical  condition  or  condi- 
tions from  the  penalties  of  God's  universal  and  eternal  law  and 
government. 

§  142.    LEVITICAL    ATONEMENTS    AND    THAT    OF    CHRIST,    ALL    MADE    TO 
GOD  FOR  HUMAN   SINNERS. 

It  is  a  radically  important  point,  that,  while  the  atonements  of 
the  animal  sacrifices  were  made  for  transgressors  of  the  Theocratic 
Law,  they  were  made  exclusively  to  God  as  Ruler  of  Israel;  and  so, 
while  the  atonement  of  Christ  was  made  for  mankind  as  sinners,  it 
was  made  exclusively  to  God  as  universal  and  eternal  Ruler.*  Its 
immediate  purpose  was  to  produce  an  effect  in  God,  and  so  in  His 
relations  to  the  universal  and  eternal  society  as  its  necessary  Ruler, 
in  their  favor,  and  not  one  in  them  at  all.  As  it  was  made  to  Him, 
not  as  a  private,  non-official  Person,  and  in  the  relations  of  one,  but 
as  universal  Ruler  by  moral  necessity,  and  therefore  as  related,  not 
only  to  human  sinners,  but  to  all  under  His  eternal  government,  it 
is  purely  absurd  to  say  that  its  designed  immediate,  direct  effect  was 
not  entirely  in  Him,  and  so  in  His  relations  to  the  universal  and 
eternal  holy  society,  but  in  sinners,  either  wholly  or  at  all,  to  whom 
it  was  not  made  in  any  sense  or  degree!  The  atonements  of  the 
animal  sacrifices  were  plainly  designed  exclusively  to  produce  an 
{*)  Eph.  5:2;  Heb.  2:17;  5:1,  3;  7:27;  8:3;  9:14,  26,  28;  io:io,  12. 


26o  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

effect  IN  God  SiS  Theocratic  Ruler  in  favor  of  those  for  whom  they  were 
made,  and  so  in  His  relations  to  them  and  to  the  whole  Theocratic 
people,  and  not  directly  any  whatever  in  them.  The  result  of  benefit 
to  them  was  wliolly  in  consequence  of  these  being  made  to  Him  for 
them,  antl  of  tlie  effect  they  produced  in  Him,  and  so  in  His  rela- 
tions as  -Ruler  Lo  them  and  the  whole  people.  This  effect,  whatever 
it  was,  was  such  as  to  make  it  perfectly  jitsl  to  the  whole  obedient 
theocratic  people,  I'cnevo/ent  to  the  whole  and  the  transgressors,  and 
wise  and /'est  \n  aVi  respects,  and  therefore  consistent  for  Him,  not 
only  to  forgive  them  on  their  repentance,  but  to  exert  all  practicable 
gracious  influences  upon  them  to  induce  them  to  repent.  So  the 
atonement  of  C^hrist,  being  made  to  God,  and  not  to  sinners  at  all, 
produces  no  effect  whatever  /;/  them.  If  it  did,  it  would  ///  all,  as  it 
was  fo>'  all;  whereas  no  effect  of  moral  renewal  has  ever  been  pro- 
duced by  it  in  any  ignorant  of  it  anywhere,  and  never  will  be.  If 
it  was  to  or  to  produce  an  effect  /;/  sinners,  there  is  no  possible  sense 
in  which  it  was  for  all  men,  or  for  any  before  or  after  Christ  died, 
those  only  excepted  to  whom  the  Gospel  has  been  made  known. 
All  effect  of  renovation  in,  and  benefit  to,  any  always  has  been  and 
will  be  wholly  ///  consequence  of  its  effect  ///  Him,  and  so  in  His 
relations  as  Ruler  to  all  men  as  sinners  and  to  the  universal  and 
eternal  holy  society. 

§  143.    EFFECT  OF   THAT  OF  CHRIST  IN  GOD   AND  ON  HIS  RECTORAL 

RELATIONS. 

In  what  did  that  effect  in  Him  consist  ?  We  answer,  in  the 
naturally  necessary  demands  of  justice  in  Him,  both  as  ethical  to 
Himself  and  that  entire  society  under  Him,  and  as  retributive  to  all 
sinners,  being  perfectly  met  and  satisfied  potentially  and  condition- 
ally for  them  all,  and  actually  for  all  who  under  grace  fulfill  the 
ethical  conditions.  Not  only  was  all  hindrance  from  these  demands 
of  His  nature  thus  swept  out  of  the  way  of  His  exercising  mercy  and 
grace  towards  them  to  the  greatest  degree  consistent  with  His  wis- 
dom and  their  freedom,  but  three  urgencies,  infinitely  strong,  were 
thus  created  in  Him,  and  combined  in  pressing  Him  to  do  all  rightly 
practicable  to  save  as  many  of  our  race  as  possible.  These  were  in 
or  upon  the  Father  towards  the  Son,  in  addition  to  His  own  direct, 
merciful  love  for  them  as  moral  beings,  and  were  (i)  the  impelling 
power  of  His  boundless  complacency  in  His  Son  for  making  the 
atonement  at  such  terrible  cost  to  Himself;  (2)  the  obligation  of  His 
promise  to  Him  that,  for  making  it,  He  would  give  Him,  as  a  main 


I'll  AT  OF  CHRIST  IN  GOD.  261 

part  of  His  full  reward,   all  of  mankind   who  could  be  brought  to 
"newness  of  life;"*   (3)  the  obligation  of  justice  upon   Him  to  the 
Son  to  render    Him   the   greatest   possible   reward,   including  all  of 
mankind  just  mentioned,  because,  by  the  nature  of  the  law,  the  Son 
deserved  it  for  His  obedience  unto  death,  with  His  measureless  self- 
denial,  self-sacrifice,   and  endurance  of  suffering,  so  that  it  was  due 
Him  by  moral  right.     But  these  urgencies  are  not  included  in  the  real 
effect  of  the  atonement  in  God,  but  are  simply  results  or  consequences 
of  it,  it  consisting  entirely  in  perfectly  meeting  and  satisfying  the  two 
demands   of    justice    already   stated — that   is,   of   the   law — that   is, 
again,  of  the  uncreated,  immutable,  eternal  nature  of  (lod  Himself 
with  the  law  in  it— and  that  still  further  is,  of  His  nature,  not  merely 
as  a  Person,   but  as   related   to   the  universal   society  as   its   Ruler, 
responsible  to  govern  it  in  strict  accordance  with  the  eternal,  uni- 
versal law  with  its  cpiality  of  justice.     The  atonement,  as  such,  was 
completed   (rtTt/eara/.)   in  doing    this    exactly   when  our    Lord    died 
on  the  cross.    Thenceforth,  it  was  an  accomplished,  fixed,  unchange- 
able fact  in  the  moral   universe,    absolutely  incapable  of  addition, 
subtraction,  or   modification;   and,    being  a  fact    transacted   wholly 
between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  in  itself  it  never  did  nor  could  pro- 
duce a   scintilla   of  moral   effect  of  any    kind   in   any  soul  of  man, 
more  than   did  or  could   the   primal  act  of  creation.     Yet  all  moral 
renovation  and  benefits  to  men,   from   Adam   down,  are  wholly  /// 
consequence  o^  W\t   effect  of    that   fundamental  transaction  in  Cod, 
and  so  in  His  rectoral   relations  to  all  moral  beings— especially  all 
to  men  since  the   august  moment  of  its   accomplishment.     We  are 
thoroughly  informed  how_  they  have  all  been  achieved.     To  secure 
them,    it    was    necessary    that    everything    concerning  it  — on    the 
Father's  part;   on  the  Son's;   the  moving  cause  and  reasons  why  they 
each  undertook  and  executed   His  part;   all  the  important  iacts  and 
truths  involved  and  connected— should  be  made  known  to  men  "for 
the  obedience  of  faith,"  since,  if  ignorant  of  the  whole   matter,  ex- 
tremely few  would  ever  be  renewed  by  the  Spirit  in  consetpience  of 
it.      It  was  absolutely  necessary  that  the  Holy  Spirit  should  be  given 
to  exert   His   agency   and   influences  on   men   along  with   the  truth, 
since,  without  Him,  none  ever  would  be  brought  to  comply  witli  the 
requirements  of  the   Gospel   and   be  saved.      It  was   necessary   that 
the  Church  and  ministry  should  be  provided  as  organs  and  agents 
for  carrying  on  the  work  of  renewing  and  saving  men.     There  must 
also  be  a  collection  into  an  authentic,   inspired   book  of  the   whole 

(*)  l\s.  2:8;  22:27-31;  72:8-11;  llo:l   3;   Is.  52:14.  15;  53:10-12;   Dan.  7:13,  14- 


262  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

family  of  facts  and  truths,  essential  and  important  to  be  known  by 
men  for  their  instruction  and  guidance;  and  these,  not  vain  specu- 
lations, theorizings,  and  conceits,  should  be  everywhere  preached 
and  taught  to  all  people.  It  is  only  by  the  knowledge  given  to  men 
in  all  the  ways  indicated,  especially  of  the  facts  and  truths  concerning 
and  involved  in  the  atonement,  and  of  the  measureless,  merciful  love 
which  moved  both  the  Father  and  the  Son  to  their  parts  in  that  con- 
summate measure,  and  by  the  supreme  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
that  any  important  number  are  ever  brought  to  comply  with  the 
ethical  conditions  required  in  the  Gospel,  and  to  renewal  of  heart 
and  life. 

§  144.    THE    SO-CALLED    MORAL    VIEW    OF    IT    AGAINST    SCRIPTURE    AND 

ABSURD. 

From  the  foregoing  showings,  it  is  palpably  contradictory  and 
absurd  to  say  or  hold  that  the  direct  purpose  or  end  of  the  atonement 
of  Christ  was  or  could  be  either  wholly  or  partly  in  sinners — that  it 
was  or  could  be  to  reconcile  them  to  Him,  not  Him  to  them — that  is, 
to  influence  them  to  come  into  moral  harmony  with  Him,  and  not 
to  constitute  a  ground  i7i  Him,  and  so  in  His  rectoral  relations  to 
the  loyal  universal  society,  on  which  He  could  consistently  forgive 
all  who  would  fulfill  the  necessary  conditions.  The  exact  reverse  is 
the  invincible  truth.  As  we  have  before  said,  the  atonement  was 
perfectly  accomplished,  never  to  be  repeated,  the  moment  Christ 
died,*  while  reconciliations  of  sinners  to  God  are  continuous.  Of 
the  numerous  passages  which  speak  of  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  Christ  as  related  to  God,  not  one  dissents  from  the  fore- 
going statements  respecting  this  transaction. f  The  words,  to 
God,  when  not  expressed,  are  plainly  implied  in  each  of  these 
passages  after  the  verb,  to  offer,  and  the  noun,  offering,  being 
omitted,  because  understood  by  all  from  constant  usage.  It  is  omit- 
ted for  the  same  reason  after  the  verb,  to  give,  in  another  class  of 
passages;  J  and  after  the  word,  propitiation."^  So,  when  the  word 
sacrifice  or  its  plural  occurs,  to  God,  if  not  written,  is  always  implied 
after  it;x  and,  if  not  written,  it  is  always  implied  after  the  verb,  to 

(*)  Heb.  7:27;  9:26;  10:12,  14;  I.  Pet.  3:18. 
(f)  See  passages  referred  to  near  beginning  of  the  last  section. 
{%)  Mat.  20:28;  Ma.  10:45;  Gal.  1:4;  2:20;   Eph.   5:2,  25;  I.  Tim.  2:6;  Titus 
2:14. 

(ID  Rom.  2:25;  I.  John  2:2;  4:10;  Heb.  2:17,  New  Version. 

(x)  Eph.  5:2;  Heb.  5:1;  7:27;  8:3;  9:9,  23,  26;  10:5-8,  11,  12,  26. 


ILL-DESERT  OF  SLlSfl^ERS.  263 

sacrifice;  and  the  expression,  sacrifice  or  sacrifices  to  God,  if  not 
written,  is  always  implied  after  the  verb,  to  offer,  or  as  its  subject,  if 
in  the  passive.  The  phrase  for  sin,  or  for  sins,  if  not  written,  is 
always  implied  after  the  noun  sacrifice  or  sacrifices,  and  often  after 
the  noun  offering.  These  are  all  abreviated  modes  of  expression  used 
by  the  Israelitish  priests  and  people  from  the  time  of  their  receiving 
the  Law  at  Sinai  and  of  their  first  sacrifices  according  to  it  down 
through  the  centuries;  and  they  all  accord  in  teaching  respecting, 
not  only  those  typical  atonements,  but  the  great  antitypical  one  of 
Christ's  offering  and  sacrifice,  that,  in  no  sense,  were  they  or  was  it 
made  to  men  to  produce  any  effect  in  them,  but  to  God  only  as  gov- 
ernmentally  related  to  thejn  on  account  of  their  sins — that  is,  on 
account  of  their  violations  of  His  law — that  is  again,  on  account  of 
their  offenses  against  and  opposition  to  Him  as  Ruler,  whose  law  they 
have  disregarded  and  whose  authority  they  have  practically  defied. 
They  all  accord  in  teaching  that,  as  the  nature  and  necessity  of  the 
case  absolutely  required,  if  human  sinners  were  to  be  saved  from 
the  punishment  which  they  deserve  and  justice  demands,  the  sac- 
rifice of  Christ  to  God  was  for  them  as  a  substitution  for  their  sub- 
jection to  it. 

§  145.    NOT    IMPLIED    IN   THE    SUBSTITUTION   OF   CHRIST,    THAT   HE  AS- 
SUMED  THE   ILL-DESERT  OF  SINNERS. 

I.  In  saying  that,  in  His  sufferings  and  death  for  mankind, 
Christ  was  their  representative  substitute,  it  is  not  implied  that  He 
assumed  their  ill-desert,  and  thus  deserved  to  suffer  all  that  was 
inflicted  upon  Him  in  their  stead;  nor  that  He  removed  their  ill- 
desert  from  them  in  any  degree,  and  thus  gave  them  back  the  right 
to  exemption  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  penally  according  to  it; 
for  to  do  either  of  these  was,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  both  unneces- 
sary and  impossible.  Directly  the  opposite  is  implied;  since  His 
substitutional  sufferings  for  them  would  be  those  of  the  just  for  those 
of  the  unjust;  of  Him  perfectly  obedient  to  God  as  the  law  requires, 
and  therefore  infinitely  well-deserving,  for  them  perfectly  disobedient, 
selfish,  and  ill-deserving.  These  sufferings  of  Christ  must  be  in 
measicre,  as  seen,  not  by  men,  but  by  God  who  alone  can  see  it,  at 
least  perfectly  equivalent  in  value  and  efficiency  upon  Him  and  His 
rectoral  relations  to  secure  to  Him  and  the  universal,  everlasting  so- 
ciety under  Him  the  just  due  and  end  which  the  penal  sufferings 
and  death  of  all  human  sinners  would,  leaving  their  ill-deserts  un- 
touched. Both  good-  and  ill-desert  are  personal,  adhering  like  fade- 


^Ci4  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CflRIST. 

less  colors  to  every   moral   actor,   good  or  bad,   and   never,  by  any 
possibility,  can  be  transferred,  like  property  or  garments,  from  one 
to  another   more    than   can  personal  identity.     No   one   can   ever 
deserve  reward  or  punishment  for  the  properly  personal   action  of 
another;  and  therefore  the  ill-desert  of  human  sinners  could  not  be 
transferred  to  .Christ.     Besides  this.  He  deserved  the  direct  opposite 
of  all  He  substitutionally  endured   for   them — complete  exemption 
and  protection   from    all,  and   positive   reward   commensurate   with 
His  consummate   obedience  as  their   representative   before  He  en- 
dured  them;   and   He  will   deserve   it  forever,   while   they   deserve 
nothing  but  punishment  according  to  their  sins,  and  will  deserve  it 
forever;   for  forgiveness,  if  they  should  receive  it,  does  not  obliterate 
ill-desert,  but  merely  saves  from  suffering  the  punishment  it  calls 
for.     But,   because  the  substitution  saves   them   from  the  necessity 
of  suffering  this,  provided  they  return  to  obedience  before  the  close 
of  the  gracious  probation  connected  with  it,  there  is  no  end  of  jus- 
tice or  benevolence  to  be  secured  by  their  suffering  it,  if  they  return; 
and  should  God  inflict  it,  He  would  not  only  cause  an  unnecessary, 
measureless,  everlasting  evil  in  the  universe,  but  consummate  wrong 
to  the  whole  loyal  society  with   Himself  at  its  head.     He  would  do 
it  especially  to  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who,  being  sent  by  the  Father, 
came  and  made  the  representative  substitution  at  such  cost  to  Him- 
self, having  the  promise  that  all  who  would  come  unto  God  by  Him 
should  be  saved,  they  being  given  to  Him  by  the  Father  as  a  chief 
part  of  the  reward  He  so  consummately  deserved,  and  it  would  be 
a  violation  of  that  fundamental   promise  to  Him,  as  well   as  of  the 
promise  to  every  sinner  that,  if  he  will  come.  He  will  in  mercy  and 
grace  forgive  and   save   him.     Besides,  if  the  ill-desert  of  sinners 
were  abolished  by  Christ,  they  could  not  be  forgiven.     They  would 
have  a  right  to  be  treated  as  if  they  had  not   sinned;  and   for  God 
to  treat  them  so,  instead  of  being  mercy  and  grace  to  them,  would 
be  denianded  by  justice. 

§  146.  NOR  THAT  HF,  EXPERIENCED  ANY  PERSONAL,  NATURAL  CONSE- 
QUENCES OF  SIN. 

2.  Nor  could  His  suffering  and  dying  as  the  substitute  of  human 
sinners  include  the  experience  by  Him  of  any  of  tJie  natural  conse- 
quences of  sin,  whether  those  in  and  from  conscience  or  any  others 
in  their  constitution.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  impossible  that  a 
/loiy  being  that  has  never  sinned,  God  or  a  creature,  should  exjjer- 
ience  any  of  these;  and,  on  the  other,  these,  as  we  have  shown,  are 


GOD'S  ABHORRENCE  OF  SIM.  265 

no  part  of  the  retributive  penalty  of  the  law,  althougli  abandonment 
to  them  by  God  will  be.  Besides,  what  conceivable  relation  or 
adaptation  could  there  be  in  His  suffering  these,  were  it  possible,  to 
save  sinners  from  tJiein  or  from  their  sin  which  induces  them  ?  These 
can  be  arrested  and  prevented  only  by  regeneration,  sanctification, 
and  the  resurrection.  By  the  first  two  of  these  He  arrests  their 
occasioning  cause;  and,  by  His  operation  on  the  body  in  quicken- 
ing it  and  redeeming  it  at  the  resurrection  (Rom.  8: 11,  23),  He  com- 
pletes a  perfect  and  eternal  deliverance  from  them;  not  by  any 
suffering  of  men  themselves,  nor  of  Christ  for  them,  nor  by  their 
forgiveness. 

§  147.    NOT    THE    DIRFXT    DESIGN  OF    HIS    ATONEMENT    TO   SHOW    GOD'S 
ABHORRENCE  OF  SIN,  ETC. 

3.  Nor  could  the  direct  design  of  Christ's  atoning  sufferings 
and  death  be  to  show  God's  abhorrence  of  sin.  His  determination 
to  punish  for  it,  His  purpose  to  maintain  His  authority,  His  regard 
for  His  law  and  obedience  to  it,  nor  to  magnify  and  make  it  hon- 
3rable,  nor  any  such  thing.  They  certainly  would  show  each  of 
these  and  other  similar  things  to  men  and  other  intelligent  beings 
having  knowledge  of  them-;  and,  as  He  foreknew  they  would,  He 
doubtless  designed  them  to  do  so  besides  or  as  consequences  of  their 
(^reat  essential  end,  which  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  7-ctributive 
t>enal  si4fferings  deserved  by  sinners.  That  is,  they  were  to  meet  and 
satisfy  the  demand  of  justice  as  retributive  to  human  sinners  accord- 
ing to  the  ill-desert  of  their  sin,  which,  in  its  natnre,  at  once  dis- 
cards the  ethical  justice  required  by  the  law  to  God,  nan,  and,  in 
principle,  all  other  moral  beings,  e.xisting  and  to  exist,  and  is  positive 
injustice  to  them,  being  pernicious  antagonism  to  all  their  natural 
and  moral  rights,  dues,  interests,  concerns,  and  everlasting  good. 
They  were  to  meet  and  satisfy  this  demand  in  God  and  all  holy 
beings  against  sinners  for  their  punishment  as  perfectly  at  least  as 
that  would,  so  that  all  of  them  who  would  return  to  God  morally, 
during  their  gracious  probation,  would  be  free  from,  it  forever.  But, 
as  Christ's  sufferings  and  death  were  the  peerless  and  consummate 
manifestation  of  God's  character  and  whole  disposition  towards 
mankind  and  all  created  moral  beings,  they  could  not  but  be  pro- 
lific ever  onward  of  a  numerous  and  glorious  offspring  of  facts  and 
results,  including  those  above  specified.  But  to  make  any  or  all  of 
them  the  direct  end  of  the  stupendous  intervention  is  to  make  the 
offspring  the  parent,  the  radiance  of  the  sun  the  vast  luminary  itself. 


266  THE  A  TONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

It  is  only  to  state  the  end  differently  to  say  that  it  was  the  greatest 
possible  good  in  the  universe  of  moral  beings. 

§  148.    HIS  SUFFERINGS    DIFFERENT  IN  CHARACTER  AND    DESIGN    FROM 
THOSE  OF  MOTHERS,  FRIENDS,  OR  PATRIOTS. 

4.  The  atoning  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  for  the  end  stated 
were  radically  different  in  essential  moral  quality  or  character  from 
any  sufferings  or  death  for  human  sinners  in  the  sense  in  which  a 
mother  makes  sacrifices  or  enduies  sufferings y^r  her  child  in  distress, 
a  friend  does^yr  a  friend  in  bad  condition,  a  patriot  does y^r his  coun- 
try oppressed,  assailed,  or  in  danger,  or  any  one  does  for  another  or 
many  in  suffering  or  peril  of  any  kind.*  His  differs  from  those  of  any 
of  these  in  the  precise  fact  that  His  were  entirely  substitutional,  or,  in 
the  only  proper  sense  of  the  word,  vicarious  for  the  punitive  suffering 
and  death  deserved  by  sinners,  while  theirs  were  not.  Neither  in  de- 
sign nor  in  fact  are  the  supposed  sufferings  of  a  mother  instead  of 
those  of  her  child.  They  neither  prevent  nor  remove  its  ills  by 
being  in  their  stead,  but  are  simply  sympathetic  suffering  with  it  in 
feeling  and  in  endeavoring  to  minister  to  its  need  or  to  relieve  its 
distress,  not  to  retrieve  it  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  deserved 
punishment  by  suffering  in  its  stead.  There  is  nothing  properly 
vicarious  in  hers;  there  is  nothing  in  His  not  properly  so;  and,  while 
hers  may  be,  and  commonly  is,  from  mere  natural,  maternal  affec- 
tion, not  from  moral  love,  and  is  confined  to  her  oivn  child  or  chil- 
dren, His  were  absolutely  from  moral  love,  were  for  all  mankind, 
and  for  them,  not  as  friends  but  as  sinners  and  enemies  against  Him. 
The  same  is  substantially  true  of  the  sympathetic  suffering  of  a 
friend  for  a  friend,  and  of  any  one  for  any  number  of  others.  As  to 
the  suffering,  or  even  the  death  in  battle  or  otherwise,  of  a  patriot 
for  his  country,  so  far  is  it  from  being  vicarious  for  any  sufferings  of 
his  country  that  his  are  simply  a  part  of  its,  and  are  owed  to  it  by  him 
as  a  matter  of  justice.  There  is  no  mercy  in  the  action  of  either,  be- 
cause there  is  no  desert  of  punishment  in  its  objects. 

§  149.  HIS  NOT  EQUAL  IN  QUANTITY  TO  THE  AGGREGATE  OF  THOSE 
DESERVED  BY  ALL  MANKIND,  NOR  BY  THE  ELECT. 

We  hold  it  impossible  that  His  sufferings  could  have  filled  any 
such  measure,  although  doubtless  greater  than  many  suppose.  If 
we  hold  in  mind  the  teachings  of  Scripture  concerning  Him,  that 


(*)  Bushell's  Vic.  Sac,  pp.  46,  47. 


CHRIST'S  SUFFERINGS.  267 

He  was  God  and  man  united  in  one  Person,  the  God-man,  and  all 
His  relations  to  the  Father,  to  mankind,  and  to  the  universal  and 
eternal  moral  society  created  by  Him;  and  that  He  became  such  a 
Person  by  His  incarnation,  on  purnose  to  bethe  representative  of 
our  race  of  sinners  with  God,  botu  to  act  and  to  suffer  for  it,  the 
plain  fact  is  that  He  was  its  representative  substitute  in  His  atoning 
sufferings  and  death.  Now,  first,  being  such  a  Person;  so  related  to 
God  and  the  universal  society;  so  absolutely  periect  in  His  obedi- 
ence to  the  will  of  His  Father  both  in  doing  and  in  suffering;  such 
a  representative  substitute  in  His  sufferings  and  death  for  mankind 
liable  to  suffer  as  they  deserve;  being  so  moved  by  His  Divine  pity 
and  mercy  towards  them,  though  sinners  and  enemies,  as  to  act  the 
infinite  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  of  abdicating  the  eternal  ^oxy 
He  had  with  the  Father,  "in  the  form  of  God,"  and  of  "taking  "the 
form  of  a  servant"  under  the  law,  "being  made  in  the  likeness  of 
men,"  thus  deserving  nothing  from  God  but  an  infinite  reward;  but, 
instead  of  seeking  it,  "being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man.  He  humbled 
Himself"  still  more,  "so  as  to  become  obedient  even  unto  death, 
yea,  the  death  of  the  cross,"  thus  raising  His  desert  of  a  reward  to 
the  greatest  that  even  God  could  give; — what  limit  can  there  be  to 
the  intrinsic  moral  value  and  potency  of  such  a  substitution  of  HimselJ 
in  His  atoning  sufferings  and  death  for  them  liable  to  suffer  the 
retributive  punishment  they  deserve  for  their  sins?  As  a  represent- 
ative man  is  one  for  many,  so  his  doings  or  sufferings,  as  one,  are 
those  of  one  for  those  of  all  represented  by  him;  so  that  they  neither 
need  to  be  nor  can  be  a  quantitative  equivalent  of  those  of  all  he 
represents  in  them,  but  only  of  a  representative  one.  That  is,  they 
need  not,  at  jnost,  exceed  what  any  worst  one  of  the  represented  is 
bound  to  do  or  to  suffer.  As  his  doing,  so  his  suffering,  as  such,  is 
equivalent  in  value  and  effect  to  that  of  all  of  them.  Such  is  the 
nature  of  the  case.  So,  accordingly,  was  it  with  the  representative 
doings  and  sufferings  of  Christ  as  done  and  undergone  to  the  Father 
as  Ruler  in  behalf  of  all  human  sinners.  And  be  it  noted  here  inci- 
dentally, that  the  fact  that  He,  being,  their  representative,  could  not 
be  exempted  from  drinking  the  cup  of  substitutional  sufferings  and 
death  for  them,  notwithstanding  His  agonizing  pleadings  for  the  ex- 
emption, demonstrates  that,  unless  He  drank  it  in  their  stead,  they 
could  not  be  exempted  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  themselves  the 
retributive  punishment  they  deserve  for  their  sins,  after  their  gra- 
cious probation.  it>  ended. 


268  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

§  150.    WIIV  HIS    WERE    EQUIVALENT  TO  THOSE    DESERVED    BY   ALL 
HUMAN    SINNERS. 

But,  secondly,  if  told,  that,  according  to  Christ's  teachings,  the 
punishment  of  incorrigible  sinners  in  the  Gehenna  of  fire,  and  accord- 
ing to  John's  in  the  Apocalypse  (Rev.  20:12-15),  and  to  those  of 
other  Apostles,  will  be  eternal,  wldle  the  sufferings  of  Christ  from 
their  beginning  in  the  gLirden  to  His  death  were  not  over  fifteen 
hours;  and  if  asked  how  His,  so  brief,  could  be  a  substitute  for 
theirs,  the  question  is  already  sufficiently  answered,  though,  after 
some  addition  to  this,  a  still  more  conclusive  one  will  be  given.  Our 
only  addition  to  this  is.  that,  considering  all  above  stated  respecting 
the  Person  of  Christ,  His  relations  to  the  h'ather,  to  man,  and  to 
the  universal  and  eternal  society,  why  He  became  incarnate,  and,  as 
man's  representative  to  the  Father,  did  and  suffered  all  He  did,  it  is 
certain  that  His  brief  sufferings  and  death  must  have  a  moral  value 
and  potency  to  meet  and  sustain  the  demands  of  justice  against 
human  sinners  and  to  that  society  absolutely  infinite  and  eternal, 
and  that  all  the  retributive  sufferings  of  all  these  sinners  forever 
would  have  incomparably  less  of  both.  We  add  that,  during  those 
few  hours,  He  undoubtedly  did  suffer  all  that  such  a  Person  could; 
and  that  all  these  sufferings  were  endured  in  obedience  to  the  ivill 
of  the  Father,  who  would  n(jt  hear  His  entreaties  for  exemption 
from  them,  but  delivered  Him  up  to  the  hands  of  His  enemies,  men 
and  devils,  and,  in  their  acme,  withdrew  His  supporting  presence 
from  Him;  so  that  thex  loerc  all,  in  a  real  sense,  the  product  of  posi- 
tive inflictions  upon  Him  h\  the  P\jthcr.  as  the  sufferi'igs  0/ lost  sinners 
will  he.  This  action  of  the  Father  towards  His  only-begotten  and 
well-beloved  Son  was  included  in  His  part  of  the  stupendous  tran- 
saction, as  arranged  in  the  far-back  counsels  of  the  Godhead,  and 
was  done  by  Him  with  infinite  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  as  the 
Son's  part  was  by  Him."  But  the  most  conclusive  answer  of  ?\\  to 
the  question  whether  the  brief  sufterirfgs  and  the  death  of  Christ 
could  be  a  sufficient  substitute  for  those  deserved  by  human  sinners, 
as  declared  in  the  teachings  referred  to  above,  is  the  answer  to  the 
question,  how  did  the  Father,  to  whom  as  universal  Ruler  the 
atonement  made  by  them,  and  in  whom  it  was  to  have  its  sole  effect, 
regard  it?  This  is  really  the  only  important  question  for  us  con- 
cerning it;  and  the  delightful  answer  is,  7oith  infinite  satisfaction. 
He  alone  could  know  all  that  pertained  to  the  whole  case  as  related 
to  Himself  and  the  universal  and  eternal  society  under  Him,  and 

(*)  Tohu  :;:i6;  Roin.  8:.^2. 


THE  ATONEMENT.  269 

what  the  effect  in  Him  of  this  atonement  was.  He  knew  whether  it 
was  a  perfect  expiation  for  the  sins  of  mankind,  and  so  whether  it 
was  a  perfect  propitiation  of  Himself  towards  them.  That  is,  He 
knew  whether  it  perfectly  met  the  demands  of  justice,  both  as  retrib- 
utive against  them  as  sinners,  and  as  ethical  to  Himself,  and  the 
universal  society,  so  that  they  were  absolutely  unimpaired,  and  left 
mercy  and  grace  entirely  free  to  exert  themselves  to  the  utmost  to 
bring  them  to  fulfill  the  conditions  of  forgiveness  on  its  basis.  It  is 
an  absolute  fact,  certififd  in  a  throng  of  places  and  ways  in  God's 
own  Book,  that  He  did  know  it  to  have  all  this  value  and  effect; 
that  it  did  produce  a  perfect  propitiation  in  Him  towards  mankind; 
that  Christ,  by  His  sufferings  and  death,  was  the  propitiation;  and 
that  His  being  such  precisely  as  He  was,  was  arranged  for  in  the 
redemptive  plan  in  the  antiquities  of  the  eternal  Trinity  of  the  God- 
head.* 

§151.    IN    WHAT    THE    ATONEMENT    CONSISTED;    WHY    MADE;    AND  WHY 
IT  MORE  THAN   MET  THE   DEMANDS  OF  JUSTICE. 

From  all  the  preceding  ir  'his  Chapter,  the  clear  fact  is  that 
the  atofiement  consisted  wholly  in  Christ's  repi'esentative  substitution 
of  Himself  in  Mis  sufferings  and  death  to  the  Father  as  Ruler  of  the 
universal,  eternal  society,  for  mankind  as  liable  to  suffer  retributively 
as  they  deserve  for  their  sins  in  this  life,  to  exempt  them  conditionally 
from  the  necessity  of  undergoing  that  suffering  themselves.  It  was 
solely  from  His  pure  philanthropy,  pure  mercy  and  grace  towards 
human  sinners,  that,  in  perfect  voluntariness,  He  thus  substituted 
Himself  for  them,  as  no  one  can  deny  that  He  had  an  absolute  right 
to  do;  and  it  was  equally  from  the  same  that  the  Father  sent  and 
gave  Him  to  do  it,  and  did  all  His  part  towards  Him  in  doing  it 
according  to  their  ante-mundane  agreement.  So  all  objections  to 
it,  as  unjust  to  Christ,  as  possibly  wrong  in  any  sense,  or  as  not  the 
consummate,  all-surpassing  acting  of  absolute  ethical  justice  to  all, 
including  the  Godhead,  in  the  universal  society,  and  of  measureless 
mercy  and  grace  towards  mankind  as  sinners  and  enemies,  on  the 
Father's  part,  are  against  everything  in  the  case,  and  are  implicit 
denials  that  He  and  the  Son  acted  their  parts  in  perfect  concert, 
alike  just,  alike  merciful,  and  alike  with  measureless  philanthropy, 
self-denial,  and  self-sacrifice  to  the  end.  They  both  alike  fulfi.lled 
their  stipulated  parts  for  ends  of  boundless,  eternal  gain  and  un- 


(*)  Acts  2:23;  3:18;  24:28;— Is.  53:10-12;  riiil.  2:0,  10;  anil  uumeious  other 
places. 


270  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

imaginable  good — the  salvation  of  numbers  numberless  of  our  lost 
race  from  all  deserved  penal  retributions,  and  their  exaltation  to  all 
their  predestined  glory,  blessedness,  relations  and  beneficent  func- 
tions with  Christ  in  the  intelligent  universe;  the  maintenance  and 
perpetual  augmentation  of  the  universal  and  eternal  society  in  abso- 
lute harmony  with  God,  His  law  and  all  good;  the  utter  suppression 
of  Satan,  his  angels,  and  all  his  human  adherents  out  of  all  farther 
action,  influence,  or  injurious  relation  in  that  society;  and  the  infi- 
nite satisfaction  and  glory  of  the  whole  Godhead  forever  from  the 
ever-augmenting  result. 

A  word  farther  here  about  justice.  It  is  not  a  thing  separate 
from  the  law,  and,  as  such,  retributively  the  summum  jus,  which  is 
summa  injuria,  which,  like  Shylock  with  his  bond  for  the  pound  of 
Antonio's  flesh,  exacts  rigid  execution  of  its  demand.  It  is  the  in- 
trinsic quality  of  the  law  which  makes  it  social  by  making  its  matter 
of  love  reciprocally  owed  and  due  universally;  so  that  the  end  of 
that  love,  which  is  the  greatest  possible  real  good  of  moral  beings, 
and  its  end  are  identical.  This  is  true  of  it  even  when  retributive  to 
sinners,  as  their  punishment  is  to  secure  this  good  to  the  obedient. 
Hence,  when  Christ  suffered  as  the  representative  substitute  of  sin- 
ners to  save  them  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  as  they  deserved, 
He  not  only  met  the  demands  of  justice,  both  as  retributive  against 
them  and  as  ethical  to  God  and  the  universal  society,  but  He  did 
vastly  more  than  the  punitive  sufferings  of  all  human  sinners  could 
have  done — all  the  surpassing,  measureless,  eternal  good,  which  is 
indicated  above. 

§  152.    LOVE,    NOT   A    PRINCIPLE    ESSENTIALLY    VICARIOUS    IN    ITS 

NATURE. 

Examples  of  mere  sympathy  with,  and  self-sacrificing  ministries 
to  and  efforts  for  suffering  objects  of  affection  go  not  a  step  towards 
proving  the  "theologic  fiction,"  that  love  in  any  sense  is,  in  its  very 
nature,  vicarious.  They  merely  show  that  the  love,  whether  of  a 
mother  for  her  child,  of  a  friend  for  a  friend,  of  a  patriot  for  his 
country,  or  of  any  towards  any  number  of  others  specially  related 
by  ties  of  nature,  of  mutual  attachment,  of  country,  of  race,  or  how- 
ever, impels  to  its  special  executive  action  for  the  object  or  objects 
thus  specially  related,  but  not  towards  entire  mankind,  and  certainly 
not  towards  them  when  enemies  without  and  against  any  just  cause 
or  reason,  and  more  yet,  not  if  in  rebellion  against  its  actor  having 
rightful  authority  and  government  over  them,     Such  loye  is  not^  i;^ 


LOVE.  271 

itself,  intrinsically  moral,  as  it  is  common  to  mankind,  even  the  worst, 
and  proves  nothing  as  to  the  real  nature  and  manifestations  of  moral 
love,  which  is  essentially  pure  good-will  to  all  men  and  moral  beings, 
acted  out  according  to  their  characters  and  relations.  As  we  have 
before  shown,  no  sympathetic  suffering  with  others,  whether  spec- 
ially related  or  not  in  it,  with  whatever  labors  and  endurances  for 
them,  which  is  not  designed  to  free  them  from  the  necessity  of  under- 
going a  deserved,  punitive  suffering  by  being  in  its  stead,  is  or  can 
be  vicarious.  This  term  cannot  consent  to  be  wrenched  away  from 
meaning  substitutional,  which  it  only  properly  can  mean,  and  made 
to  mean  this  mere  sympathizing  suffering  with  suffering  objects  of 
affection,  which  it  never  did  nor  can  properly  mean,  to  suit  the 
exigency  of  any  system-maker.  Moral  love  in  God  or  any  other 
being  is  no  principle  at  all,  but  is  entirely  action  of  the  moral  heart, 
a  voluntary  moral  state  of  the  mind  of  its  actor  according  to  the 
law,  which  is  its  only  principle.  It  consists  in  pure  good-will  with 
its  correlated  emotions  and  intellectual  action;  and  no  action 
executive  of  it  to  or  for  its  objects,  nor  suffering  with  or  for  them,  is 
.intrinsically  any  part  of  it,  except  as  shore-creeks  are  of  oceans. 
These  are  merely  special  effects  or  results  of  it,  both  the  action  and 
the  suffering,  as  far  as  it  is  voluntarily  undergone,  being  always  to 
accomplish  or  attain  some  particular  end  or  ends  of  good,  because 
connected  with,  or  important  to,  the  grand  end  of  this  love,  which 
is  the  greatest  possible  good  of  all  its  objects  consistent  with  their 
several  characters,  deserts,  conditions,  and  relations  to  each  other, 
and  to  God.  In  itself,  therefore,  the  love  of  God  is  in  no  proper 
cense  vicarious  to  all,  and  involves  no  principle  requiring  Him  to 
undergo  vicarious  suffering  for  human  sinners  otherwise  than  it  does 
one  to  execute  every  special  act  or  course  which  He  sees  to  be  made 
necessary  or  important,  wise  or  best,  by  occasion — that  is,  in  any  other 
sense  than  it  does  one  to  inflict  punishment  on  incorrigible  sinners,  to 
forgive  those  who  truly  repent,  to  visit  persons,  communities,  or  natiotis 
with  special  judgments,  to  exercise  special  providences,  or  disciplinary 
chastisements,  or  to  do  any  special  thing.  If  sin  had  never  entered 
the  universe,  vicarious  suffering  would  have  been  impossible,  because 
there  would  have  been  fio  occasion  and  opportunity  for  it;  and  ye' 
God  and  all  moral  beings  would  have  been  perfect  in  love.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  God  or  even  human  rulers  must  inflict  punishment 
on  transgressors,  there  is  no  opportunity  or  place  for  it;  and  yet  God 
is  certainly  in  perfect  love  in  inflicting  punishment,  and  men  may  be. 
fbere  was  no  opportunity  or  piac^  for  vicarious  suffering  by  Go4 


272  THE  ATOMEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

when  He  "spared  not  the  angels  that  sinned,  but  cast  them  down  to 
hell,  and  delivered  them  into  chains  of  darkness,  to  be  reserved  unto 
judgment;"  and  yet  He  was  in  perfect  love  in  so  treating  them.  It 
is  only  in  respect  to  mankind,  in  whose  case  as  sinners  there  are 
mitigating  circumstances,  that  such  suffering  for  them  was  possible 
for  God;  and  therefore  vicarious  suffering  is  necessarily  only  a 
SPECIAL  measure  of  occasion  and  wisdom,  just  as  every  other  special 
measure  and  act  or  course  is  and  must  be.  We  will  see  that  this 
measure  was  possible  for  God  only  once,  and  can  never  be  repeated. 
So  far  is  such  suffering  from  being  an  essential  principle  in  the 
nature  of  love. 

We  simply  notice  here,  that  the  vicarious  suffering  of  Christ  for 
mankind  was  not  to  rescue  any  of  them  from  the  necessity  of  under- 
going any  suffering  in  this  life,  whether  natural,  including  that  of 
bodily  death,  or  providential,  or  disciplinary.  For,  (i)  It  does  not 
do  this  as  a  matter  of  fact,  although  a  mitigation  of  temporal  suffer- 
ing in  various  respects  is  among  its  effects.  (2)  It  could  not  do  this, 
because  a  substitution  for  any  temporal  suffering  is  impossible.  (3) 
It  could  only  be  to  rescue  them  as  sinners  from  suffering  deserved, 
positive  punishment  from  God,  which,  without  it,  it  was  morally 
necessary  that  He  should  inflict  upon  them  all.  (4)  As  this  life  is  one 
of  probation,  and  not  of  retribution,  it  could  oftly  be  to  rescue  from 
the  necessity  of  suffering  this  after  this  life  ends,  so  that  as  many  as 
would  return  to  God  before  it  ends  could  be  forever  freed  from 
suffering  it  by  means  of  His  vicarious  suffering  for  them  as  the 
ground  of  their  forgiveness  and  of  all  good  to  them.  The  atonement 
was  for  mankind  as  immortals,  to  secure  their  immortal  good.  Chris- 
tianity is  a  religion  for  immortals. 

We  must  pursue  this  notion  of  a  principle  of  vicarious  suffer- 
ing in  all  love  farther.  If  we  consider  all  the  requisite  and  essential 
conditions  of  such  a  measure  in  a  human  government,  it  is  perfectly 
obvious  that  it  can  never  be  adopted  by  one.  Considering  the  very 
limited  capabilities  of  all  human  rulers,  the  brevity  of  their  lives,  the 
indefiniteness  and  defectiveness  of  their  relations  to  their  subjects, 
their  faultiness  at  best  in  moral  character  and  wisdom,  and  their 
lack  of  truths,  motives,  and  renovating  agency  and  influences  requi- 
site to  secure  any  beneficial  results  in  their  subjects  from  such  a 
measure,  even  if  it  were  at  all  possible  to  execute  it,  how  could  one 
even  attempt  to  adopt  it  without  utter  folly  and  the  certainty  of  evil, 
instead  of  auspicious  results?  We  know  the  story  of  Zaleucas,  which 
has  been  used  to  illustrate  the  vicarious  atonement  of  Christ;  but, 


LOVE  NOT  i/ICARIOUS.  273 

v/hile  the  idea  of  substitution  appears  in  it,  it  is  so  defective  in  vari- 
ous essential  aspects  requisite  to  represent  that  stupendous  measure 
in  its  adaptations  to  meet  the  whole  case  between  God  and  human 
sinners,  that,  in  our  earliest  consideration  of  the  subject,  we  dis- 
carded the  use  of  it  for  that  purpose.  But  God,  being  all  that  He 
is  in  nature,  mode  of  existence  as  tripersonal,  character,  and  rela- 
tions to  mankind  and  all  moral  beings  as  their  Creator,  Preserver, 
and  Ruler,  and  being  unlimited  in  all  natural  and  moral  attributes, 
was  infinitely  able  to  devise  and  execute  this  supreme  measure,  to 
make  all  the  manifestations  of  Himself  in  and  connected  with  it  to 
them,  to  place  the  momentous  truths,  facts,  and  motives  involved  in 
and  created  by  it  before  them,  and  to  exert  a  personal  morally  re- 
newing influence  upon  them  to  secure,  on  the  ground  and  in  conse- 
quence of  it,  results  of  salvation  to  men,  of  eternal  benefit  and  bless- 
ing to  all  holy  beings,  and  of  good  to  Himself,  compensating  for  it 
beyond  all  finite  conception.  Seeing  it  thus  practicable  and  infi- 
nitely beneficent  and  wise,  in  the  opulence  of  His  mercy  He  adopted 
and  executed  it  as  the  one  only  means  to  meet  the  one  only  occasion 
in  the  case  of  mankind  at  least,  created  by  their  sin  and  the  right- 
eous, holy,  indefeasible  demand  of  retributive  justice  against  them; 
and  He  can  never  repeat  it  toiuards  them,  because  there  can  never  be 
another  such  occasion  in  their  case.  There  is  t/ie  strongest  reason  to 
think  He  can  never  repeat  it  toivards  any  other  race  or  order  of  moral 
beings  in  the  universe.  Hence,  there  never  was,  nor  can  be,  a  Geth- 
seniane,  nor,  wiiat  is  more,  a  Calvary,  in  the  love  of  any  other  being 
than  God;  never  in  His  toiuards  mankind  otherwise  than  all  special 
acts,  courses,  and  measures  are  in  it  when  occasions  for  them  arrive 
whetiier  they  are  of  beneficence,  of  mercy,  or  of  judgment  and  justice, 
He  eternally  foreknew  the  occasions  for  all  His  special  acts,  courses, 
and  measures,  this  among  them;  and  it  was  in  His  eternal  purpose 
to  execute  this  "in  the  fullness  of  time"  forseen  by  Him  in  the 
atoning  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ.  But,  since  then,  it  never  has 
been  nor  will  be  in  His  purpose,  in  His  executive  acts,  nor  in  His 
love  again  towards  mankind.  Gethsemane  and  Calvary,  therefore, 
whether  viewed  separately  or  together,  will  forever  stand  alone 
among  all  the  executive  acts,  courses,  measures,  and  manifestations 
ot  God  towards  them;  and  no  real  parallel  of  them  will  ever  be  exe- 
cuted again  towards  them,  nor  probably  towards  any  other  order  of 
beings  in  the  universe. 


274  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

§  153.    THAT   IT   IS    NOT,  SHOWN    BY    APOSTROPHIZING    PROPHETS, 
CHRIST,  ETC. 

We  think  the  foregoing  a  demonstration  of  the  falseness  of  the 
notion  that  love,  especially  moral  love,  is  in  its  nature,  vicarious, 
But,  as  this  notion  is  the  legitimate  outcome  of  denying  real  retrib- 
utive punishment,  and  of  holding  the  natural  consequences  of  sin 
the  real  and  only  retributions,  and  with  this  that,  from  the  nature  oi 
love,  God  and  all  good  beings  must  enter  into  the  bad  condition  of. 
and  go  to  cost  for  sinners  of  all  characters  and  degrees  with  unlim- 
ited sympathy  and  persistence,  we  deem  it  important,  besides,  to 
place  it  in  a  position  that  will  expose  its  unscriptural  and  obnoxious 
character.  For,  if  true,  it  is  worse  than  that  of  non-resistance,  main- 
tained by  some  in  the  anti-slavery  struggle,  which  required  only 
passive  endurance  of  what  assailants  might  inflict,  but  not  vicarious 
suffering  for  them,  which  is  voluntary  atid  positive.  To  expose  its 
true  character,  let  us  apostrophize  as  follows: — Oh  prophets,  psalm- 
ists, and  saints  of  the  Old  Testament  down  to  Malachi!  Wherefore 
did  you  predict  and  denounce  such  appalling  burdens  and  dooms 
on  your  own  people  and  their  generations,  and  on  all  the  nations 
and  kingdoms  from  Babylon  to  Rome  and  down  the  centuries  for 
their  sins  and  apostasies,  instead  of  voluntarily  entering,  and  teach- 
ing your  people  to  enter,  into  their  wretched  conditions,  and  of  going 
to  the  cost  of  vicarious  suffering  of  the  kind  of  this  notion  accord- 
ing to  this  inherent  principle  of  all  love?  And  wherefore  did  Jehovah, 
from  whom  you  declaredly  spoke,  violate  "  this  principle  of  all  love," 
in  so  terribly  executing  them  all  along  the  centuries,  even  until  now, 
overwhelming  and  sweeping  them  away  with  horrors  on  horrors, 
the  records  of  which  make  the  hearts  of  readers  quake?  But,  as 
many  decry  the  Old  Testament  in  these  days,  let  us  come  to  the 
New.  Oh  Saviour  of  men,  the  center  and  sum  of  absolute  love! 
wherefore  didst  thou  declare  thy  terrific  threatenings  and  woes 
against  all  incorrigible  sinners,  especially  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees, 
and  the  Jewish  nation  adhering  to  them,  dooming  Jerusalem  and  its 
temple  to  destruction,  and  the  remnant  surviving  that  destruction 
to  their  still-continued  dispersion  over  the  Gentile  world,  and  to  all 
their  incalculable  endurances,  notwithstanding  thy  vicarious  suffer- 
ings for  them  and  the  world,  instead  of  persistently  entering  thyself 
into  their  miseries  and  going  to  helping  cost  for  them  ?  and  where- 
fore hast  thou  been  executing  thy  menaces  and  doomings  until  now? 
Wherefore  didst  thou  threaten  all  incorrigible  sinners,  not  in  relation 
to  Sheol  or  Hades,  the  place  of  all  the  souls  of  the  dead,  but  in 


LOVE  NOT  VICARIOUS.  275 

relation  to  Gehenna,  Hell,  the  place  of  future  punishment,  nine  differ- 
ent recorded  times — six  times  without  qualifications,  once  "  hell  of 
fire,"  once  with  the  addition,  "the  unquenchable  fire,"  and  once  with 
the  addition,  "where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  is  not 
quenched;  "  declaring  four  times,  that  they  should  '■^ be  cast  into'"  it> 
t7vice  that  they  "shall  go  into"  it,  once  that  "God  is  able  to  destroy 
both  soul  and  body  in''  it,  once  that  they  are  "in  danger  of  //,"  once 
that  they  are  '■^ sons  of  it,''  and  once  asking  "how  they  can  escape  the 
judgment  of  it?  "  Wherefore,  further,  didst  thou  announce  that  "  thou 
wilt  say  to  them  on  the  left  hand.  Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed,  into 
the  eternal  fire  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels,"  and  that  they 
"  shall  go  away  into  eternal  punishment;  "  and  make  numerous  other 
averments  of  the  same  awful  import?  In  what  possible  way  can  all 
thy  various  and  appalling  declarations  of  eternal  punishment  con- 
sist with  thy  love,  or  with  truth,  if  the  natural  consequences  of  sin 
are  its  only  punishment,  and  all  love  is  in  principle  vicarious,  and 
must  therefore  persistently  enter  into  the  bad  condition  of,  and  go 
to  cost  for  all  sinners?  Are  the  so-called  liberals  right  or  absurd  in 
pronouncing  them  all  merely  figurative,  so  that  they  do  not  mean 
what  they  say,  inflicted  eternal  punishment,  but  merely  the  natural 
consequences  of  sin,  from  which  thy  vicarious  love  of  sympathy 
and  cost  will  yet  retrieve  all  sinners?  Oh  holy  Apostles,  imbued  so 
peerlessly  with  love  from  its  very  fountain!  wherefore  did  you,  in 
your  preaching  and  writings,  denounce  such  numerous  and  terrible 
positive  retributions  from  God  upon  all  incorrigible  rejecters  of  the 
grace  of  salvation,  instead  of  declaring  to  all  the  doctrine  of  vica- 
rious, sympathetic  love,  that  God  will  never  inflict  positive  punish- 
ment upon  any;  that  only  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  await  any, 
however  refractory;  that,  if  they  only  repent  at  any  time  in  futurity, 
they  will  escape  these,  and  would  if  Christ  had  never  come  and  died, 
nor  any  grace  through  His  cost-death  been  given;  and  that,  accord- 
ing to  this  vicarious  principle  in  the  very  nature  of  love,  God  and 
all  good  beings  must  make  themselves  their  loving  vassals  and  vic- 
tims by  persistently  entering  themselves  into  their  evil  condition, 
and  vicariously  going  to  cost  for  them  to  win  them  from  their  sin 
and  its  ba'd  natural  results  either  until  they  repent  or  until  assured 
that  they  never  will  ?  Why  did  you  not  understand  the  love  you 
proclaimed,  and  not  shock  the  sensibilities  of  at  least  all  claiming  to 
be  most  advanced  in  culture  and  refinement  by  these  gross  and  bar- 
barious  denunciations  and  appeals  to  the  low  principle  of  fear?  Oh 
thou,  of  holy  love  the  most  perfect  human  shrine,  who  wert   the 


276  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

Apocalyptic  seer!  what  potent  drug  had  laid  thy  love  asleep,  that 
thou  couldst,  unparalyzcd,  bear  to  see  the  dreadful  panorama  of 
scenes  and  convulsions;  hear  the  cries  of  single  mighty  angels  with 
mighty  voices — of  hosts  of  them  combined,  loud  as  of  tumultuous 
seas  and  volleyed  thunders — ;of  myriads  in  heaven  united  in  hymns 
and  hallelujahs,  with  harpings  loud  as  the  sound  of  many  waters  or 
rolling  thunders — of  Him  on  the  heavenly  throne  or  His  criers, 
uttering  great  commands  or  proclamations  with  mightiest  sound — 
of  the  souls  of  the  martyrs  under  heaven's  altar  crying  with  loud 
voice  against  their  murderers — of  trumpetings  and  thunderings  with 
all  the  attending  explanations,  informations,  songs,  lamentations, 
and  sayings  in  heaven  and  on  earth: — all  relating  to  a  correspond- 
ing series  of  appalling  retributive  judgments  from  Him  who  sits  on 
the  throne  on  vast  portions  of  mankind  for  their  incorrigible  wick- 
edness, and  including  famines,  pestilences,  wars,  earthquakes,  fires, 
tempests  of  hail,  locusts,  and  the  exerted  wrath  of  God,  with  all  con- 
ceivable calamities,  torments,  and  exterminating  destructions  of  the 
cities,  nations,  and  tribes  of  the  earth,  all  ending  with  the  final  judg- 
ment, and  with  casting  into  the  lake  of  fire,  which  is  the  second 
death,  all  whose  names  are  not  written  in  the  book  of  life; — and  that 
thou  couldst  relate  the  whole  in  a  book,  beside  which  all  the  catas- 
trophies  and  horrors  of  all  the  tragic  dramas  and  the  epics  ever 
written  shrink  to  comparative  trifles,  and  give  it  to  the  Church  and 
the  world  as  a  prophetic  revelation  from  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  cer- 
tain to  be  fulfilled,  to  forewarn  and  prepare  its  crediting  readers 
through  all  following  centuries?  Is  this  thy  own  and  God's  way  of 
entering  into  sympathy  with,  and  going  to  vicarious  cost  for,  the 
generations  and  nations  hostile  to  Him,  to  His  moral  system  and 
truth,  and  to  all  good?  Should  not  Jesus  Christ  through  you  have 
said  that  His  Father  and  He  could  never  do  any  such  dreadful 
things  to  His  children,  however  apostate,  wicked,  and  hostile;  and 
that  the  loving  angels  could  never  act  such  parts  as  those  of  the 
seven  trumpets  and  the  seven  seals,  and  as  those  who  executed  such 
terrific  destructions  acted  ?  Should  not  the  souls  of  the  martyrs 
under  the  altar,  "crying  with  a  loud  voice.  How  long,  O  Lord,  holy 
and  true,  dost  thou  not  judge  and  avenge  our  blood  on  them  that 
dwell  on  the  earth?"  instead  of  being  told  "to  rest  yet  for  a  little 
season  until  their  fellow-servants  also  and  their  brethren,  that  should 
be  killed  as  they  were,  should  be  fulfilled,"  have  been  told  to  cease 
their  loveless,  revengeful  cry  for  vengeance  on  their  murderers,  and 
instead   to  exercise  the  love  of  sympathy   and  vicarious   cost  for 


LOVE  NOT  VICARIOUS.  277 

them?  Instead  of  receiving  the  assurance  that,  after  a  little  season, 
God  would  avenge  them,  should  they  not  have  been  told  that  He 
would  never  inflict  any  positive  punishment  upon  their  murderers 
for  their  crimes  against  them  and  all  their  wickedness,  but  that  He, 
they,  and  all  good  beings  must,  by  the  vicarious  principle  of  love, 
enter  into  sympathy  with  and  go  to  cost  for  them  on  account  of  the 
miserable  natural  consequences  of  their  very  atrocities  against 
them,  and  of  those  of  all  their  sins  and  crimes?  To  forgive  them 
was  of  course  impossible  for  either  those  souls  or  God,  because,  as 
they  deserved  no  infliction  of  positive  retribution,  there  was  nothing 
to  forgive;  and  as  the  vicarious  principle  of  love  required  helping 
sympathy  and  suffering  for  them,  how  could  they,  in  their  white 
robes,  clamor  for  vengeance  on  them,  which  love  made  it  impossible 
for  Him  to  take,  or  be  assured  by  Him,  "the  just  and  true,"  that  He 
would  inflict  it  ?  And  how  could  the  angelic  and  saintly  hosts  in 
heaven  rejoice  and  praise  God  at  beholding  the  inflictions  of  retrib- 
utive vengeance  on  the  incorrigible  myriads  of  persecutors,  of  cor- 
rupters of  the  earth,  of  worshippers  of  the  wild-beast,  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  false  prophet,  of  the  fornicators  with  the  great  whore, 
and  of  the  inhabitants  of  Great  Babylon?  Then,  how  could  our 
Lord  Himself  on  the  white  horse,  "  having  on  His  vesture  and  on 
His  thigh  a  name  written.  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords,"  go 
forth,  followed  by  the  armies  of  heaven,  like  a  mighty  Conqueror,  to 
"smite  the  nations  with  the  sword  which  goes  out  of  His  mouth,  to 
rule  them  with  a  rod  of  iron,  and  to  tread  the  wine-press  of  the 
fierceness  of  the  wrath  of  Almighty  God,"  an  angel  "crying  with  a 
loud  voice,  saying  to  all  the  fowls  that  fly  in  the  midst  of  heaven, 
Come,  and  gather  yourselves  together  unto  the  supper  of  the  great 
God,"  specifying  what  the  supper  is,  which  is  prepared  for  them  by 
this  resistless  One?  Lastly,  how  can  the  description  of  the  final 
judgment  in  Chapter  20:11-15  possibly  consist  with  the  notion  that 
the  merely  natural  consequences  of  sin  are  real,  and  its  only,  retri- 
butions or  punishment? — or  with  the  notion  that  love  is  intrinsically 
vicarious,  and  must  be  persistently  acted  out  towards  all  sinners  by 
sympathizing  with  and  going  to  cost  for  them  in  the  bad  condition 
of  those  consequences  of  their  sins? — or  with  any  position  whatever, 
other  than,  that  the  only  retributions  are  positive  inflictions  of  pun- 
ishment on  finally  incorrigible  sinners  "according  to  their  works," 
the  universal  rule,  twice  expressed  in  this  passage,  which  punishment, 
according  to  the  unequivocal  teachings  of  our  Lord  recorded  in  the 
Gospels,  as  we  have  shown,  consists  in  being  "cast  into  the  lake  of 


£jS  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

fire,"  Gehenna,  with  the  devil  and  his  angels  for  whom  it  was  pre- 
pared, which  "is  the  second  death?"  From  this  death  there  will  be 
no  resurrection.  It  will  be  eternal.  The  eternal  door  is  locked  on 
them.  The  eternal  curtain  hides  them.  They  are  eternally  outside 
of  the  universal  moral  system.*  What  enormous  nonsense  this  notion 
of  love  is!  and  how  perfectly  its  likeness  is  its  child,  the  notion  of 
the  so-called  moral  atonement,  which  is  none  at  all! 


(.*]  CLap.  21:8,  27;  22:11-15, 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  designed  relations  of  the  Atonement  to  human  sinners  as  such, 
to  those  brought  to  comply  with  the  conditions  of  salvation  atid  forgive- 
ness during  their  probation,  and  connected  points. 

§  154.    THE  ATONEMENT  A  PROVISION  FOR  ALL  MANKIND  ALIKE,  BUT  AN 
ACTUAL  ONE  FOR  THOSE  ONLY  WHO  COMPLY  WITH  ITS  TERMS. 

That,  in  designed  adaptation,  it  is  a  provision  for  all  mankind 
alike  is  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  They  are  all  alike  creatures  of 
God,  made  by  Him  in  His  own  image;  alike  intrinsically  valuable 
in  nature  as  immortal  moral  beings;  alike  in  having  the  law  in  and 
from  their  moral  nature,  and  in  being  naturally  and  necessarily  sub- 
ject to  it  and  to  the  government  of  God;  alike  consequently  related 
to  Him  and  all  moral  beings,  existing  and  yet  to  exist  in  all  futurity, 
and  He  and  they  to  them;  alike  from  and  related  to  Adam  as  their 
natural  head  and  representative;  alike  fallen  in  and  with  him  in  his 
"  first  disobedience,"  thus  becoming  vitiated  in  nature  and  sinners; 
alike,  as  such,  in  their  relations  to  God,  to  His  law  in  them  Avith  its 
justice,  to  His  government,  and  to  His  universal  and  eternal  moral 
society  and  system;  alike  liable  to  the  retributive  punishment  de- 
served by  their  sins,  and  powerless  to  escape  it;  alike  sinners,  not  in  an 
absolute,  but  in  a  modified  degree  during  this  probationary  life,  or  as 
long  in  it  as  they  do  not  by  willful  presumption  make  themselves 
utterly  incorrigible  apostates  from  God  and  all  obligation,  as  doubtless 
some,  comparatively  very  few,  of  them,  do;  alike  capable  of  misery 
and  all  ruin,  if  unrescued,  and  of  glory  and  all  good,  if  saved;  alike 
absolute  objects  of  mercy,  the  very  nature  of  which  is  to  rescue  the 
.guilty,  as  far  as  possible,  from  punishment  and  all  the  evil  of  sin, 
and  to  restore  them  to  right  character  and  all  good;  alike  capable, 
if  so  rescued  and  restored,  of  being  occasioning  causes  of  pleasure 
and  glory  to  God  and  of  happiness  to  all  good  beings  forever,  but, 
if  not,  of  sorrow  to  Him  and  them  forever;  alike,  in  fine,  in  all 
essential  respects.     There  is  not  therefore  a  conceivable  principle, 


28o  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

not  purely  arbitrary,  aside  from  their  own  voluntary  action  and 
courses  under  and  respecting  the  truths  and  motives  He  sets  before, 
and  the  influences  He  exerts  upon  them  on  the  basis  of  the  atonement, 
and  their  consequent  relations  to  Him,  to  the  universal  holy  society 
in  which  He  is,  and  to  His  eternal  law  antl  government,  on  which 
the  atonement  could  be  exclusively  designed,  as  a  provision,  for  only 
a  part  of  mankind,  or  not,  in  the  fullest  sense,  for  them  all  alike  as 
sinners.  As  they  are  alike  in  all  the  respects  mentioned,  so  God, 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  His  law  and  government,  and  His 
universal  holy  society  are  all  equally  and  changelessly  alike  in  them- 
selves and  as  related  to  them  as  sinners.  In  designed  adaptation, 
therefore,  the  atonement  must  be  for  them  all  alike  as  gniity,  in  order 
to  be  a  provision,  on  the  ground  of  which  forgiveness  and  all  salvation 
may  be  freely  offered  to  all  on  condition  of  their  compliance  with 
the  terms  of  the  offer,  and  that  He  may  make  an  actual  application 
of  it  to  all  of  them  who  fulfill  this  condition.  That  is,  it  must,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  be  primarily  simply  a  social,  provisional,  and, 
of  course,  conditional  substitution  for  the  penal  suffering  of  them  all 
as  sinners,  to  be  made  an  actual  one  to  such  of  them  only  as  comply 
with  the  conditions  under  the  motives  of  the  facts  and  truths  and  the 
influences  of  the  agencies  connected  with  it,  as  known  to  and  operant 
upon  them;  and  it  cannot  be  either  an  absolute  or  an  actual  one  for 
any  of  them  while  continuing  in  sin.  //  is  only  God's  act  of  forgiving 
each  one  who  fulfills  the  condition,  that  makes  it  actual  (oy  him. 

§  155.    THE  CONDITION  OF  ITS    APPLICATION  TO  ANY,   AND  HOW  IT  IS 

MADE. 

The  condition  which  constitutes  ethical  fitness  for  the  actual 
application  of  the  substitution  to  any  one  by  forgiveness  is  not,  of 
course,  any  kind  of  works  to  deserve,  earn,  and  win  the  favor  of  God 
as  their  reward;  nor  the  mere  belief  of  anything  concerning  Him  as 
true;  but  is  the  voluntary  act  or  exercise  of  yielding  up  sin  and  self 
to  God,  as  known,  by  believing,  trusting,  relying  upon  Him  as  merci- 
ful and  gracious  to  forgive  sin  and  set  free  from  its  punishment.  It 
is  by  faith,  that  it  might  be  by  grace  (Rom.  4:16),  and  can  be  no 
other  way.  According  to  this  general  definition,  it  may  be  fulfilled 
by  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  Gospel,  because  such  a  faith  in  God, 
as  known  by  them,  involves  such  an  ethical  state  in  them  by  the 
grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that,  if  they  did  know  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,  they  would  believe  in  Him  as  their  Saviour  and  Lord,  and 
that,  when  He  shall  become  known  to  them,   they  will,  as  it  were, 


ATONEAfENT  FOR  ALL.  281 

spontaneously  believe  in  Him.  Such,  doubtless,  was  tl\c  case  of  the 
centurion  of  Capernaum,  of  Cornelius,  ;\n<l  of  otliers  among  "he 
heathen,  to  whom  the  Gospel  was  preached  by  the  Apostles;  aid  is 
the  case,  we  hope,  of  some  among  them  of  all  times.  Cut,  corifniing 
ourselves  now  to  those  who  have  knowledge  of  the  vicarious  suffer- 
ing of  Christ  for  mankind,  it  is,  in  the  Gospel,  offered  to  them  all 
alike  and  declared  to  be  for  all,  as  the  ground  of  forgiveness  on  the 
ethical  condition  stated;  and  were  it  not  really  so,  the  offer  would 
neither  agree  with  the  fact,  nor  with  sincerity  and  truth. 

§  156.    IF  NOT  FOR  ALL,  WOULD    NOT  ACCORD  WITH    EITHER  JUSTICE  OR 

MERCY. 

There  are  two  other  confirmations  of  tliis  position,  (i)  Unless 
the  atoning  suffering  of  Christ  was,  in  God's  design,  a  provisional 
substitution  for  the  deserved  retributive  suffering  of  all,  as  alike  in 
all  the  respects  noticed,  it  would  neither  acconl  with  the  universally 
social  nature  of  the  justice  of  the  law,  the  retributive  demands  of 
which  are  against  them  <?// in  behalf  of  God  Himself  and  His  entire 
and  eternal  holy  society,  nor  with  the  nature  of  mercy,  which  is  an- 
tithetically correlated  to  these  demands  against  them  all,  as  it  is  Io%'e 
of  their  nature  and  its  good  for  tlieir  immortal,  intrinsic  value,  not- 
withstanding their  sin  and  guilt;  and  therefore  it  cannot,  from  its 
nature,  be  confined  to  any  part  of  them,  but  must  be  towards  and 
act  for  them  all  alike  as  sinners.  It  never  exists  and  acts  towards 
holy  beings,  nor  towards  sinners  absolutely  lost,  but  only  towards 
sinners  who  may  be  redeemed,  and,  through  redemption,  restored  to 
right  character,  and  so  to  God  and  His  holy  society;  and,  because 
redemption  from  the  righteous  demands  of  retributive  justice  against 
them  is  the  only  gate  through  which  forgiveness  and  all  good  from 
God  can  enter  to  any  of  them,  it  was  necessarily  the  consummate 
action  and. measure  of  mercy  to  all  to  provide  this  gate,  which  it 
could  only  do  by  providing  a  substitute  to  meet  those  demands  by 
suffering  in  their  stead.  But,  as  they  are  all  alike  in  all  the  respects 
noticed,  all  intertied  by  their  race  membership  and  relations,  and 
all  objects  alike  of  mercy,  which  cannot  be  partial,  the  substitutional 
suffering  which  would  provisionally  meet,  and  stay  the  execution  of, 
those  demands  against  one,  would  do  the  same  for  every  other  one, 
and  so  for  them  all.  Besides,  and  by  doing  this,  it  would  secure  for 
them  their  gracious  probation  with  all  the  Providential  blessings  and 
good  they  receive  during  its  continuance,  and  all  the  truths,  motives, 
agencies,  and  influences  created  by  and  connected  with  it  to  brin« 


2S2  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

them  to  return  to  God  in  faith  and  its  loving  obedience.  But  it  could 
not  be  either  an  absoltiie  or  an  actual  substitution  for  all  or  any  of 
them  before  such  returning,  not  only  because  tliat  is  the  necessary 
ethical  condition  of  its  applicatioa  to  any  of  them  by  forgiveness, 
but  because  it  cannot,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  absolute  for  any 
during  this  probationary  life,  and,  if  it  were  actual  for  ali  or  any 
persisting  in  sin,  it  would  be  an  utterly  unrighteous  measure,  at  war 
with  the  imperative  and  all  the  characteristics  and  obligations  of 
the  law,  and  so  with  the  possibility  of  a  moral  system,  and  would 
be  a  license  to  all  to  disregard  and  violate  it  with  entire  impunity  to 
any  degrees  they  may  wish.     We  think  this  argument  decisive. 

§  157.    NOR  V/ITII    CHRIST'S    BEING  THE   REPRESENTATIVE  OF  MANKIND. 

2.  But  there  is  another  which  we  think  confirms  the  position 
stated  beyond  question.  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  the  represen- 
tative to  God  of  our  whole  race  in  His  person  and  in  all  His  action 
for  it;*  and  therefore  His  atoning  suffering  must  have  been  a  pro- 
visional substitution  for  it  all.  He  represented  it  all,  not  as  right- 
eous, but  as  sinners  deserving  to  suffer  penally  for  their  sins  as  retrib- 
utive justice  demands;  and,  ///  principle,  a  representative  is  alivays 
a  substitute  for  all  he  represents.  He  is  necessarily  such  in  the  most 
absolute  sense,  if  he  represents  them  in  suffering  and  dying  to  rescue, 
or  provide  a  rescue  for,  them  from  suffering  and  dying  in  a  punitive 
sense  as  they  deserve.  When  our  Lord,  therefore,  as  representative 
of  our  race  of  sinners,  suffered  and  died.  He  was  necessarily  the 
substitute  in  doing  so  for  them  all  alike  as  sinners — that  is,  not  an 
absolute,'  nor  an  actual,  but  a  provisional,  conditional  one,  to 
rescue  them  all  alike  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  and  dying  penally 
as  they  deserve,  provided  they  ethically  return  to  God  during  their 
probation.  Only  thus  could  His  substitution  be  an  object  for  any 
of  them  either  to  accept  and  rely  upon,  or  to  reject,  or  in  relation 
to  which  they  could  act  at  all.  We  think  this  manifest,  if  looked  at 
in  the  following  way: — 

§  158.    WHAT  TRUE  IF  IT  WERE  AN  ACTUAL  SUBSTITUTION  FOR  ALL 
MANKIND  AS  SINNERS. 

I.  Suppose  the  atonement  of  Christ  was  made  for  all  mankind 
as  si?iners,  not  as  simply  a  provisional,  but  as  an  actual  substitution 
for  their  deserved  suffering,  and,  as  truth  requires,  was  so  declared. 


(*)  I.  Tim.   2:5,  6;  Ileb.  8:6;  9:15;  12:24;  also  involved  in  Rom,  5:12-19;  I, 
Cor.  15:21,  22;  also  in  John  3:16;  Heb.  2:9-18;  and  commonly. 


ATONEMENT  FOR  ALL.  283 

It  would  then  be  also  an  absolute  one,  as  it  would  have  no  ethical 
condition  for  them  to  fulfill.  No  action  of  theirs  could  have  any 
relation  to  it  either  to  secure  or  to  prevent  its  effect.  They  would 
all  be  exempt  from  all  penal  liability  for  their  sin  of  any  degree, 
however  enormous.  It  would  make  a  moral  system  impossible,  as 
it  would  practically  supplant  the  law  and  government  of  God,  and 
all  ethical,  no  less  than  retributive,  justice,  all  responsibility  and 
accountability,  and  so  the  foundations  of  all  ethics;  and  it  would 
make  forgiveness  neither  a  thing  for  men  to  seek  nor  for  God  to 
bestow.  It  would  be  utterly  immoral  in  principle  and  effect — a 
license  to  all  to  live  as  they  list  with  perfect  impunity,  certain  of 
heaven  and  blessedness  in  the  endless  future,  if  any  blessedness 
could  be  possible  for  them  thus  saved  in  their  sins  from  penalty 
alone. 

§  159.    WHAT  TRUE,   IF  IT  WERE  SUCH  FOR  ANY  PART  OF  MANKIND, 
AND  NOT   FOR  ALL. 

2.  Suppose  again,  that  God  did  not  design  the  substitution  to 
be  a  provisional,  and  so  a  conditional  one  for  ■  all  men,  to  be  made 
actual  for  all  who  fulfill  the  condition,  but  to  be  an  actual  one  for  a 
part  of  them  only,  and  that  He  has  so  declared  it.  In  this,  as  in 
the  former  "case,  it  would  be  for  them  /;/  their  sin  and  guilt,  and 
would  meet  the  demands  of  retributive  justice  against  them  without 
any  condition  to  be  fulfilled  by  them,  so  that  no  action  of  theirs 
could  have  any  relation  to  it,  either  to  secure  or  prevent  its  effect. 
Whatever  they  might  do  or  become  in  bad  character,  they  would  be 
absolutely  exempt  from  all  penal  liability  for  it.  On  the  contrary, 
no  action  of  those  for  whom  ir  was  not  made  could  have  any  rela- 
tion to  it,  either  to  secure  or  to  prevent  its  application  to  them, 
because  it  was  m  no  sense  designed  for  them.  Neither  part,  there- 
fore, could  with  any  reason  or  eTect  act  in  relation  to  it,  to  change 
its  relation  to  them,  more  than  they  coild  to  the  man  in  the  moon 
or  to  the  steadfast  northern  star.  Neither  in  principle  nor  effect 
would  it  be  better  in  relation  to  its  objects  than  if  actual  for  all; 
while,  by  being  exclusively  for  them,  it  would  be  a  purely  arbitrary 
discrimination  between  them  and  the  rest  of  mankind,  in  conflict 
with  the  nature  and  reason  of  mercy  and  the  whole  nature  of  the 
case,  which  has  been  shown.  But,  although  its  effect  to  rescue  its 
objects  from  penalty  would  be  the  same  whether  they  knew  them- 
selves such  and  relied  on  it  or  not,  yet  supposing  it  could  be  differ- 
ent if  they  did  know  it  was  for  them,  from  wh^t  it  \vould  be  if  they 


284  THE  ATON'EMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

did  not,  how  could  any  of  them  possibly  get  the  knowledge  that 
they  are  its  objects,  unless  by  a  special  revelation  to  him  of  the  fact? 
Without  this,  belief  that  they  are  would  be  without  evidence,  mere 
assumption. 

§  160.    IF  EITHER    OF    THESE    SUPPOSITIONS    WERE    TRUE,  A  PROHATION 
IN  ANY  SENSE  V/OULD  BE   IMPOSSIBLE  FOR  MANKIND. 

3.  But,  we  reject  both  these  suppositions  not  only  for  the 
reasons  stated  against  them,  but  the  additional  special  one  under- 
lying them,  that  the  substitution  in  either  case  would  make  a 
probation  in  any  sense  impossible  for  mankind.  For  what  could 
the  objects  of  it  in  either  case  be  on  probation  for,  when  no  action 
of  theirs  could  affect  or  relate  to  their  future  salvation  from  penalty 
more  than  that  of  the  confirmed  angels  in  Heaven  could  affect  or 
relate  to  theirs?  Of  course,  if  the  substitution  is  actual  and  for  only 
a  part  of  the  race,  the  other  part  cannot  be  on  probation  in  any 
sense;  for  their  perdition  is  irreversibly  certain;  and  thus  no  pro- 
bation is  possible  for  any  of  the  race,  and  God  can  have  no  moral 
system  and  no  government  over  them  more  than  over  the  irrational 
animals. 

§  161.    MUST  BE  SIMPLY  A  PROVISION  FOR  ALL  ALIKE  TO  BE  MADE  ACTUAL 
FOR  ANY,   OR  TO  BE  OFFERED  TO  ALL  OR  ANY. 

'We  therefore  hold  it  certain,  on  every  ground,  that  the  substi- 
tution, as  it  relates  to  human  sinners,  as  sucJi,  must  be  designedly 
simply  provisional  for  them  all  alike,  and  that  it  must  be  so  in  order 
to  be  made  actual  for  any  of  them  when  renewed.  It  must  be  such, 
to  be  truly  and  sincerely  offered  to  all  alike  as  directly  related  to 
them  and  their  action,  the  alternative  for  each  being  that,  if  he 
accepts  it  in  the  prescribed  ethical  way,  it  will  be  made  actual  for 
him,  but,  if  he  will  not,  it  will  avail  him  nothing,  but  v/ill  make  his 
guilt  and  punishment  greater.  The  knowledge  of  it  is  thus  a  mighty 
motive  in  itself,  a  momentous  inducement  and  impulsion  to  draw 
and  impel  him  to  fulfill  the  condition,  being  a  solid  and  sure  basis 
for  his  faith  and  hope,  and  at  the  same  time  vastly  augmentive  of 
his  fear  to  continue  in  sin.  The  fact,  that  the  Son  of  God,  moved 
by  His  infinite  pity  for  our  race  of  sinners  despite  all  their  hostility 
of  heart  and  wrong  of  action  against  God,  in  pure  mercy  and  grace 
to  them  all,  voluntarily  became  man  under  the  law  to  represent  and 
act  for  them,  not  merely  in  teaching  them  all  necessary  moral  and 
gracious  truth,  in  declaring  His  Father  to  them,  and  in  His  whole 
absolutely  perfect  example  of  character,  conduct,  and  all  manifesta- 


PROVISION  FOR  ALL  ALIKE.  2S5 

tioa  in  His  relations  to  them,  but  supremely  in  substituing  Him- 
self as  the  representative  of  them  all  in  His  suffering  and  death 
to  rescue  them  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  and  dying  penally 
as  retributive  justice  demands,  and,  by  doing  this,  to  secure  for 
them  all  gracious  truth,  agencies,  and  influences  to  bring  them 
back  to  God  morally,  in  order  that  God  may  make  this  pro- 
visional substitution  for  all  actual  by  forgiveness  for  each  return- 
ing one,  and  may,  on  the  ground  of  it,  give  him  eternal  salva- 
tion and  all  the  blessings  and  glories  promised  in  the  Gospel  to 
all  such  as  are  made  "  meet  for  the  inheritance  of  the  saints  in 
light" — this  most  stupendous  fact  in  the  universe  is,  and,  through 
all  time,  must  be  to  all  who  know  of  it,  the  monarch  motive,  com- 
pared with  which  all  others  are  as  asteroids  or  satellites  to  the  glor- 
ious sun,  to  rouse  in  men  the  impulse  of  gratitude,  to  subdue  their 
stubbornness  in  sin,  and  to  allure  and  sway  them  to  renounce  it 
and  yield  themselves  to  God  in  faith,  love,  and  true  obedience.  It 
is  only  when  one  is  brought  by  this  mighty  solvent  of  sinful  hearts 
to  do  this  under  the  agency  of  the  Spirit  showing  and  impressing  it 
as  a  designed  provision  for  all,  that  it  can  righteously,  and  without 
positive  injustice  to  God  Himself  and  all  good  beings  under  Him, 
be  made  actual  for  him  by  forgiveness  from  God.  But,  as  we  think 
we  have  shown,  if  it  were  directly  actual  for  all  or  only  a  part  of 
mankind  as  sinners,  it  could  be  no  motive  and  have  no  adaptation 
or  tendency  to  bring  its  objects  from  sin  to  trust  and  love  God,  but 
would  serve  as  a  license  to  them  all,  and,  in  the  case  of  its  being 
for  only  a  part,  for  the  other  part  also,  to  continue  in  sin.  All, 
therefore,  would  continue  to  experience  the  natural  consequences 
of  sin,  and,  if  the  substitution  were  for  a  part  only,  the  other  part 
would  suffer  its  positive  retributive  punishment  in  addition,  while  it 
would  be  utterly  arbitrary,  being  at  war  with  the  law,  with  universal 
moral  nature  which  contains  and  issues  it,  with  the  whole  moral 
system  it  constitutes,  and  so  with  all  ethical  justice  to  God  and  all 
good  beings  according  to  their  natural  and  moral  rights  to  each 
other's  pure  moral  love,  and  demanded  by  their  everlasting  dues, 
interests,  and  concerns.  By  their  sin,  all  men  are  morally  out  of 
and  in  conflict  with  this  moral  system,  and  the  problem  for  God  to 
solve  was  how  to  get  all  or  any  of  them  back  into  it  consistently 
with  all  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  Himself  and  the 
whole  everlasting  society  in  it.  He  solved  it  by  devising  and  mak- 
ing a  provisional  substitution  for  them  all,  to  be  made  actual  by  for- 
giveness for  every  one  of  them  who  would  truly  return  into  it  under 


286  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

the  gracious  motives  and  influences  in  and  secured  for  them  by  the 
amazing  measure,  which  thus  at  once  looks  to,  guards,  and  secures 
all  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  Himself  and  His 
everlasting  loyal  society,  and  looks  to  and  provides  for  the  salvation 
and  all  good  of  as  many  sinners  of  our  race  as  can  be  brought  to 
return  truly  into  the  moral  system  constituted  by  the  law  in  all 
moral  natures.  That  is,  it  is  at  once  a  measure  of  ethical  justice  to 
God  and  all  good  beings  forever,  and  of  representative  substitution 
for  retributive  justice  against  all  human  sinners,  provisional  for  all, 
and  actual  for  all  who  truly  return  to  God. 

§  162.   THE   ATONEMENT   BEING    FOR   ALL,    ALL   HAVE   A   GRACIOUS 

PROBATION. 

Thus  and  thus  only,  can  all  have  a  probation;  for  the  only  one 
they  can  have  is  a  gracious  one,  one  to  which  they  have  no  possible 
right,  not  even  by  promise,  as,  like  life,  it  is  given  without  any,  in 
which  they  may  return  to  God  and  be  forgiven  by  Him,  if  thev  will. 
But  as  those  who  return  and  receive  forgiveness  are  not  confirmed 
in  holiness  in  this  life,  their  probation  continues  to  its  end,  though 
under  vastly  better  conditions  than  before  on  account  both  of  their 
changed  subjective  state  and  of  their  objective  relations  to  all  holy 
truth,  to  God,  and  to  His  universal  holy  society.  While,  therefore, 
forgiveness  makes  the  substitution  actual  for  them,  it  does  not  make 
it  absolute,  as  its  continued  application  to  them  necessarily  remains 
conditional  till  probation  and  life  end  together,  when,  if  they  have 
continued  to  fulfill  the  condition,  they  will  be  confirmed,  and  the 
substitution  will  be  made  absolute  for  them  forever.  If  they  should 
not  continue  to  fulfill  it,  they  would  necessarily  fall  back  under  the 
penalty  deserved  by  their  sins.  If  they  are  still  on  probation  in  any 
sense,  their  forgiveness  is  in  the  same  sense  conditional,  and  could 
not,  of  itself,  prevent  such  a  relapse  at  any  time  of  its  continuance. 
But,  while  we  fully  hold  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and,  therefore,  the 
possibility  and  danger  of  such  a  relapse,  and  the  certainty  of  it,  if 
the  forgiven  were  left  to  themselves  under  all  the  temptations  which 
surround  them,  and  with  all  the  suceptibilities  and  tendencies  to  evil 
which  still  remain  in  them,  we  do  not  believe  any  of  them  ever  Iiave 
fallen  or  will  fall  into  it.  For  the  best  of  reasons,  which  we  may 
show  in  the  sequel,  we  joyfully  believe  that  God  has  so  arranged 
and  provided  for  their  conservation,  that,  even  if  at  times  in  their 
course  they  fall  into  sin,  they  will  be  kept  from  apostasy  and  per- 
sistence iu  them,  restored  and  preserved  in  habitual  fulfillment,  of 


ALL  SACRED   TRUTH,  ETC.,  PROVISIONAL.  287 

the  condition  till  death  ends  their  probation,  when  they  will  be  con- 
firmed and  the  substitution  will  be  made  absolute  for  them  forever. 
'■Sin  shall  not  have  dominion  over  them;  for  they  are  not  under 
law,  but  under  grace." 

Such,  we  think,  are  the  relations  of  Christ's  atonement  to  man- 
kind, and  we  see  not  how  any  other  or  others  can  possibly  harmonize 
with  the  nature  and  essential  facts  of  the  case.  We  believe  the  teach- 
ings of  Scripture  concerning  it,  when  we  come  to  examine  them, 
will  be  found  to  harmonize  with  and  be  reflected  in  this  view  in  all 
respects,  and  not  with  any  other  essentially  different  one. 

§  163.    ALL  SACRED  TRUTH,  MOTIVES,  ETC.,  LIKE  THE  ATONEMENT,  ONLY 
PROVISIONAL  FOR  MANKIND  AS  SINNERS. 

Not  only  was  the  atonement  (0  the  Father  as  Ruler  a  conditional 
provision  for  all  mankind  alike  as  sinners,  but  all  done  for  them,  as 
such,  along  with  it  was  of  the  same  kind.  Such  in  relation  to  them 
as  sinners  was  all  the  truth  of  revelation  with  its  measureless  motives, 
all  that  Christ  manifested  of  infinite  merciful  love  for  them  in  His 
temporal  life  and  death,  all  that  He  continues  to  do  and  secure  for 
them  in  His  Mediatorial  reign,  all  that  the  Father  does  for  them 
graciously,  all  that  the  Holy  Spirit  does  in  His  agency  for  them, 
all  the  workings  and  manifestations  of  God  in  providence,  and  all 
done  for  them  by  the  Church  and  by  Christians  individually  or  in 
cooperation  in  their  various  relations.  These  motives,  influences, 
instrumentalities,  and  agencies  are  the  greatest  conceivable  or  pos- 
sible; and  we  cannot  even  imagine  any  added  which  could  either 
augment  them  or  add  to  their  adaptation  and  potency  to  bring  them 
to  exchange,  by  their  own  free  and  cordial  choice,  their  wrong  for 
right  moral  action,  trustful  and  loving  obedience  for  sin.  The  whole 
nature  of  the  case — of  justice,  of  mercy,  of  God's  relations  to  them 
and  the  universal  society,  as  Ruler,  and  of  theirs  to  Him  and  that 
society  as  essentially  the  same  of  them  all  alike — shows  that  they 
must  be  equally  provisional  for  them  all  as  infinite  wisdom  directs. 
Any  limitation  of  them  by  specializing  design,  inconsistent  with  all 
these  facts,  to  any  restricted  part  of  the  fallen  race  cannot  even  be 
supposed  possible.  There  can  be  no  reason  in  God  for  any,  and  it 
would  be  necessarily  arbitrary.  Hence,  whether  all,  or  only  a  part 
of,  mankind,  capable  of  acting  responsibly  under  the  Gospel,  could 
or  could  not  be  brought  by  all  included  in  and  connected  with  the 
plan  of  redemption  to  comply  with  the  ethical  conditions  of  both 
forgiveness  and  the  relations  to  God  conferred  with  it  must  be  de- 


288  THE  A  TONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

cided  conclusively  by  the  self-arbitrated  act  or  choice  of  each  in 
yielding  to  or  resisting  the  motives  and  influences  brought  upon  him 
according  to  the  wisest,  best  possible  plan.  This  choice  of  each 
cannot  be  made  for  him  by  any  other  being,  nor  compelled,  super- 
ceded, or  dispensed  with;  for  all  that  is  morally  good  or  bad,  right 
or  wrong,  in  any  rational  being  must  consist  in  and  result  from  it. 
Of  course,  those  not  under  these  truths,  motives,  influences,  and 
agencies  of  and  connected  with  the  Gospel,  can  only  make  it  under 
such  as  exist  for  them  in  its  absence,  yet  each  of  them  must  make  it 
for  himself  under  these,  and  must  thus  determine  for  himself  its  con- 
sequences, good  or  bad.  Hence,  as  far  as  accountable  mankind  are 
concerned,  the  question  of  the  salvation  of  any  of  them  is  neces- 
sarily conditional.  But,  as  it  respects  those  under  the  Gospel,  the 
necessary  condition  for  each  of  them  of  obtaining  forgiveness  and 
initiation  by  God  into  the  relations  to  Him  and  all  holy  beings  which 
follow  it  is  his  entrance  by  his  own  choice,  under  its  truth,  motives, 
influences,  and  agencies,  into  the  right  moral  action  and  state  which 
it  requires;  and  then  the  necessary  condition  of  his  continuing  in 
this  action  and  state  during  his  probation  till  death  is  habitual, 
watchful,  militant  persistence  under  the  same  as  then  related  to  and 
operant  upon  him.  Conditions  never  cease  for  any  in  this  life,  be- 
cause probation  never  does.  Such  is  the  relation  of  man  on  his  side 
in  time  to  all  the  provisions  of  God  for  his  salvation.  At  his  exit 
from  time,  he  leaves  temptation  and  probation  behind,  is  at  once 
confirmed,  and  the  atonement  is  made  absolute  for  him  forever. 

Having  shown  in  the  preceding  Chapter,  §§  145-150,  what  is  not 
implied  in  our  Lord's  substituting  Himself  for  mankind  to  make  the 
atonement  to  the  Father,  as  Ruler,  for  them,  and  in  what  it  exclu- 
sively consisted,  we  here  call  back  attention  some  farther  to  that 
subject,  both  to  expand  some  of  the  points  there  indicated,  and  to 
expose  the  futility  of  any  objection  the  stupendous  measure. 

§  164.  BOTH  THE  SON  AND  THE  FATHER  HAD  A  PERFECT  RIGHT  TO  ACT 
THE  PARTS  THEY  DID,  AND  TO  AGREE  TO  DO  SO. 

In  §  151,  it  is  affirmed  that  otcr-  Lord  had  a  perfect  rigid  to  be- 
come incarnate  and,  under  the  law,  to  be  the  representative  of  man- 
kind, to  act  for  them  with  the  Father  as  Ruler,  and  to  substitute 
Himself  for  them  in  His  sufferings  and  death  to  extricate  them  from 
the  necessity  of  suffering  the  punishment  they  deserve  for  their  sins, 
or  transgressions  of  the  law,  if  they  would  return  to  obedience  dur- 
ing the  gracious  probation  granted  them.     To  deny  that  He  had  this 


ALL  SACRED  TRUTH,  ETC.,  PROVISIONAL.  289 

right  absolutely  is  to  deny  a  fundamental  principle  and  basis  of  moral- 
ity, and  to  contradict  the  common  sefise  of  mankind.  It  is  to  deny  that 
He  had  a  right  to  humiliate,  deny,  and  sacrifice  Himself  for  our  race 
as  He  did — to  become,  do  and  suffer  for  it  all  He  did — to  be  as  phi- 
lanthropic, merciful,  gracious,  and  absolutely  good  towards  it  as  He 
was — to  accomplish  and  secure  by  His  substitution  all  He  did  for  it, 
both  in  this  world  in  that  which  is  to  come.  All  who  devote  them- 
selves to  labors,  self-denials,  self-sacrifices,  and  sufferings,  or  even 
death  for  the  good  of  their  fellow-men — Christian  missionaries, 
martyrs,  philanthropists,  and  others — have  always  done  so  by  this 
right;  and  to  dispute  it  is  not  the  part  of  the  sane.  JEqiially  absolute 
was  the  right  of  the  Father,  in  the  arranged  economy  of  redemption, 
to  assume  all  the  self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  afid  heart  sufferings  He 
did  in  fulfilling  His  part  totuards  His  only-begotten  Son;  and  to 
dispute  that  He  had  it  is  equally  preposterous.  Hence,  as  both 
the  Persons  acted  throughout  in  perfect  agreement,  and  as  they 
each  had  an  absolute  right  to  do,  the  least  shadow  of  injustice 
on  the  Father's  part  towards  the  Son  was  absolutely  impossible. 
Nor  was  there  a  shadow  of  it,  but  the  contrary,  ineffable  mercy, 
towards  human  sinners,  as,  by  the  substitution,  the  demand  of 
retributive  justice  against  them  was  so  met  as  to  be  eternally 
hushed  towards  all  of  them  brought,  in  consequence  of  it,  into  the 
necessary  harmony  with  God  and  the  universal  moral  society  and 
system.  As  meeting  this  demand  was,  ipso  facto  meeting  that  of 
ethical  justice  to  God  and  that  society,  there  was  not  only  no  possible 
injustice  in  the  substitution  to  Him  and  it,  but,  as  shown  in  the  Sec- 
tion referred  to,  a  vastness  of  good  beyond  all  the  ethical  justice 
which  the  full  retributive  punishment  of  all  human  sinners  would 
secure,  which  no  finite  mind  can  measure. 

"  O'er  guilt  (how  mountainous!)  with  outstretch' d  arms 
Stern  Justice  and  soft-smiling  Love  embrace, 
Supporting,  in  full  majesty,  thy  throne, 
When  seem'd  its  majesty  to  need  support, 
Or  that,  or  man  inevitably  lost: 
What  but  the  fathomless  of  thought  divine 
Could  labor  such  expedient  from  des|3air, 
And  rescue  both?     Both  rescue?   both  exalt ! 
O  how  are  both  exalted  by  the  deed  ! 
The  wondrous  deed!  or  shall  I  call  it  more? 
A  wonder  in  Omnipotence  itself? 
A  mystery  no  less  to  gods  than  men!  " 

—  Young- s  Night  Thoughts,  Night  IV. 


ago  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

■§  165.    HENCE,  BOTH  WERE  ABSOLUTELY  JUST  IN  ACTING  THEM. 

Look  closely  at  the  case.  As  there  was  no  possible  injustice  in 
it,  how  could  the  punishment  of  all  human  sinners  more  radiantly 
demonstrate  the  justice  of  God  to  the  universal  society,  including 
Himself,  both  as  a  Person  and  as  Ruler,  than  the  fact  that,  although 
He  infinitely  desired  to  save  them  from  it,  yet  as  He  could  not  unless 
He  first  met  its  demands  against  them.  He  devised  and  executed 
this  stupendous  substitution?  How  else  could  He  so  demonstrate 
His  infinite  regard  for  the  everlasting  rights,  interests,  and  concerns 
of  that  society  and  Himself  in  and  over  it,  and  at  the  same  time  His 
infinite  mercy  towards  hostile,  guilty  man?  How  else  could  He  so 
demonstrate  His  inflexible  regard  for  and  purpose  to  maintain  and 
secure  to  the  utmost  the  eternal  law  of  all  righteousness  in  the  uni- 
verse as  to  its  justice,  its  matter  and  its  end,  and  to  administer  His 
government  according  to  its  perfect  spirit  and  demands,  both  in 
rewarding  the  obedient  and  in  punishing  the  incorrigibly  disobedi- 
ent? How  else  could  He  so  demonstrate  His  estimation  of  the 
boundless  value  of  the  love  which  is  obedience  to  the  law,  and  of 
the  corresponding  evil  of  sin  in  itself  and  as  related  to  the  end  of 
His  law  and  government,  which  is  the  greatest  good  of  all  unfallen 
and  all  rescued  moral  beings?  Considering  all  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances in  the  case  of  mankind,  how  could  He  better,  as  well,  or  at 
all  unfold  and  vindicate  His  all-perfect  character,  both  as  a  Person 
and  as  Ruler,  otherwise  than  by  this  stupendous  measure  of  self- 
sacrificing  love  for  them,  His  enemies  against  all  cause,  to  rescue 
and  save  them?  What  shadow  of  wrong  in  any  sense  can  there  be 
in  it  to  any  creature  in  the  universe?  Does  any  one  still  obtrude 
the  old,  stale  objection,  that  it  is  clearly  unjust  and  an  offense  to  the 
moral  sense  of  mankind,  that  the  innocent  should  be  punished  for 
the  guilty,  and  His  suffering  substituted  for  that  deserved  by  them  ? 
The  perfect  answer  has  been  given  again  and  again  in  both  the  pre- 
ceding Chapter  and  this.  What  we  affirm  is  not  that  Christ  was 
punished  for  the  guilty,  which  was  not  possible,  but  that  He  volun- 
tarily, having  from  infinite  philanthropy  become  their  representative 
with  the  Father  as  Ruler,  acted  the  consummate  self-denial  and  self- 
sacrifice  of  equivalently  suffering  their  punishment  in  their  stead, 
which  He  had  an  absolute  right  to  do,  as  no  sane  man  of  respectable 
intelligence  can  deny;  and  that  He  did  this  in  agreement  with  the 
Father,  who  had  the  same  right  to  act  the  self-denial  and  self-sacri- 
fice He  did  in  His  part  of  the  amazing  transaction.     Thus  justice 


ORTHODOX  GOD. 


291 


and  mercy,  justice  to  the  total  and  eternal  loyal  societv  with  Him- 
self central  in  it,  and  mercy  towards  hostile,  guilty  men,  were  so 
wedded  in  it,  each  in  infinite  culmination,  that  no  creature  can  ever 
see  a  jar  between  them,  or  say  "which  of  them  brightest  shines." 
Like  gold  in  quartz,  it  is  imbedded  in  the  absolute  consistency  of 
the  law  with  its  justice  with  mercy  and  all  its  achievable  good  in  the 
universe  and  the  ages.  No  orb  of  creation  moves  in  greater,  if  in 
equal,  consistency  with  all  the  rest,  nor  in  one  half  as  sublime.  If, 
from  imbecility,  ignorance,  or  worse,  any  lack  capacity  to  under- 
stand this,  they  should  at  least  not  expose  the  lack,  and  so  escape 
the  just  opprobrium  incurred  by  parading  this  silly  objection.  Their 
conception  of  justice  itself  expressed  in  it  is  not  that  of  the  law,  but 
that  of  an  imaginary  ogre,  distinct  from  it,  and  without  moral  mean- 
ing, aim,  or  end,  the  summum  jus,  summa  injuria. 

§  166.    THE  OBJECTION,   THAT   THE    ORTHODOX  GOD  MUST  HAVE  BLOOD, 

EXPOSED. 

But,  though  thousands  of  times  refuted  and  exposed,  this  senseless 
charge  of  inconsistency  with  justice,  unabashed,  as  often  reappears 
with  unabated  audacity,  even  often  attended  by  its  co-mate  in  silli- 
ness, that  "the  orthodox  God  must  have  blood,  if  not  that  of  sinners, 
then  that  of  His  own  Son,"  the  stupidity  of  which  alone  can  mitigate 
its  blasphemy.  If  men  neither  comprehend  nor  take  cognizance  of 
God's  actual  moral  system,  they,  of  course,  can  neither  understand 
nor  admit  the  atonement.  But,  if  the  law  is  in  and  from  all  moral 
natures  and  is  therefore  declared  in  God's  inspired  Word,  there  is  a 
universal,  eternal  moral  system  with  all  its  reciprocities,  accounta- 
bilities, and  retributions  of  reward  and  punishment,  as  we  believe  is 
demonstrated  and  developed  in  Part  I.  of  this  Work,  then  the  abso- 
lute alternative  for  all  human  sinners  is  either  the  punishment  of 
every  one  of  them  as  he  deserves,  as  liable  to  which  our  Lord  de- 
clared them  all  "lost,"  or  redemption  from  the  necessity  of  suffering 
it  by  the  infinitely  merciful  and  gracious  substitution  for  it  which 
God  has  provided  at  such  measureless  cost  to  Himself.  It  is  uni- 
versal moral  nature,  the  universal  law  in  it,  the  universal  quality  of 
justice  in  the  law,  the  universal  obligation  to  obey  it,  its  universal 
matter,  its  universal  end,  the  universal  rights,  dues,  concerns,  and 
interests,  the  universal  sense  of  desert  of  reward  for  obedience  to  the 
law  and  demand  for  it  according  to  the  desert,  and  the  universal 
sense  of  guilt  or  desert  of  punishment  for  disobedience  to  it  and 
demand  for  it  according  to  the  ill-desert; — it  is  all  these  combined, 


292  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

hanging  on  and  absolutely  binding  God,  who,  by  necessity  of  the 
case,  is  in  and  eternal  Ruler  and  Guardian  of  the  total  society,  and 
who  has  in  Him  the  same  fundamental  law  which  is  in  it,  to  main- 
tain and  administer  it  with  unswerving  regard  for  its  quality  of  jus- 
tice, both  as  ethical  and  as  retributive,  as  the  everlasting  conserva- 
tive of  both  its  matter  of  moral  love  and  its  end  of  entire  good;  and 
to  do  this  either  by  inflicting  on  all  human  sinners  the  retributive 
punishment  which  they  deserve  as  ethical  justice  to  the  loyal  society, 
or  by  precisely  the  substitution  He  provided  and  made  for  them.  It 
was  all  these  together  that  with  united  outcry  made  the  only  demand 
for  blood — that  is,  for  the  just  punishment  of  all  human  sinners — 
that  ever  was  made  in  reference  to  them  or  to  His  Son  as  their  rep- 
resentative substitute;  and  these  made  the  demand  on  God,  an  abso- 
lute one,  which  put  an  infinite  obligation  upon  Him  as  Ruler  to 
comply  with  it,  which  He  could  not  disregard  without  utter  unright- 
eousness, injustice,  and  irreparable,  ruinous,  everlasting  wrong  to  the 
total  universe  of  moral  beings.  Not  to  comply  with  it  would  be 
abdicating  His  government  and  guardianship  over  them.  For  Him, 
having  constituted  them  moral  beings  with  His  law  in  and  from 
their  practical  reason,  and  so  in  a  universal  moral  society  and  sys- 
tem, with  all  else  which  we  have  indicated  involved,  along  with  all 
else  that  is  true  of  them  individually  and  socially,  making  them 
liable,  especially  our  fallen,  disordered  race,  to  such  appalling 
danger  of  precipitation  into  moral  destruction  and  horrors  of  being, 
even  in  this  life,  and  into  worse  stiU  hereafter; — for  Him,  having  so 
constituted  all  and  all  involved,  to  leave  them  ungoverned,  un- 
guarded according  to  the  universal  law  with  its  justice,  to  refuse  to 
inflict  deserved  retributive  punishment  upon  all  sinners  among  them, 
and  to  cause  them  to  know  that  He  will  not  inflict  it,  and  so  that 
they  have  nothing  to  fear  from  Him  for  their  sins,  would  be  infinite 
crime  and  cruelty.  It  would  be  for  Him  to  turn  His  back  upon 
all  in  and  connected  wnth  them  which  we  have  indicated,  and  to 
give  them  all  over  to  the  devil,  or  to  become  devils  themselves, 
reciprocally  cursing  and  cursed,  tormenting  and  tormented;  in  whom 
all  love,  all  mercy,  all  justice,  all  moral  union  would  be  forever  dead, 
and  instead  utter  selfishness  would  reign,  developed  in  every  possi- 
ble way  into  a  universal  anarchy  of  hate,  rage,  conflict,  and  cruelty, 
with  all  the  natural  consequences  of  such  a  condition  preying,  like 
hell-hounds,  on  the  sensibility  and  whole  immortal  nature  of  each  of 
them  all  forever — foreshadowings  of  all  which  are  constantly,  daily 
manifest  to  all  open  eyes  in  the  cases  of  myriads  of  both  sexes 


MORALITY  OF  GOD.  293 

among  mankind  all  over  our  world.  There  is  not  a  particle  of  ten- 
dency in  any  natural  consequences  of  sin  to  bring  sinners  to  love  and 
obey  God  or  even  to  fear  Him.  Nor  is  there  any  in  inflicted  punish- 
ment. But  the  threatening  of  it,  which  has  so  radical  a  place  in 
God's  Word,  and  should  have  a  corresponding  one  in  true  Gospel 
preaching,  causes  fear  of  it,  without  which  who  can  appreciate  the 
supreme  meaning  and  importance  of  the  message  of  salvation  through 
Christ  and  His  atonement?  When  this  guilty  fear  is  aroused,  if  the 
knowledge  of  Christ  with  His  perfect  atonement,  and  the  offer  of 
free  and  full  forgiveness  on  its  ground  attends  or  is  received  with  it, 
it  is  not  merely  like  drink  to  the  thirsty  or  food  to  the  hungry  to 
meet  the  realized  want.  But  the  measureless  merciful  love  and  grace 
of  God  in  the  "unspeakable  gift"  of  His  Son,  and  of  the  Son  in  be- 
coming the  Person  He  did  and  the  substitute  in  His  atoning  suffer- 
ings and  death  for  our  hostile,  guilty,  wicked  race,  to  retrieve  them 
from  the  punitive  retribution  they  deserve  and  to  secure  the  agencies 
and  means  to  bring  them  back  to  God  in  renewal  to  faith,  love,  and 
obedience,  and  to  all  the  eternal  glory  and  blessedness  promised  in 
the  Gospel — these  manifestations  of  love  beyond  all  finite  capacity 
of  conception  by  both  the  Father  and  the  Son,  especially  the  Son 
shown  by  the  Spirit  to  all  He  can  consistently  bring  to  see  them, 
constitute  "the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God,"  by  which 
sin-closed  hearts  are  opened,  gratitude  is  evoked  from  them,  the 
selfish,  hardened  will  is  melted  and  changed  to  a  right  one,  and  the 
whole  moral  nature  is  made  a  new  creature  in  Christ,  and  restored 
to  God  and  the  eternal  moral  system.  Thus  God  has  done,  at  infi- 
nite cost  to  Himself,  the  utmost  possible  for  Him  to  do  to  save 
human  sinners,  and  all  are  and  will  be  saved  that  can  be,  while  none 
could  be,  but  all  would  infallibly  perish,  according  to  the  alternative 
of  all  objectors. 

§  167.  THE  QUESTION  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  ONE  OF  MORALITY THE 

MORALITY  OF  GOD. 

As  we  said  near  the  beginning  of  this  Work,  the  question  of  the 
atonement  is  one  of  fundamental  morality — the  morality  of  God,  as 
well  as  of  all  other  moral  beings — the  morality  of  the  one  universal 
moral  law  and  moral  system.  It  is  a  foolish  assumption  of  object- 
ors generally,  that  God  is  outside  and  independent  of  this  law  and 
system,  so  that  His  will  is  free  from  obligation,  control,  or  limita- 
tion by  them;  that  they  exist  only  in  and  for  His  rational  creatures, 
if  not  for  man  exclusively;  and  that  He  can  regard  them  or  not  in 


294  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

acting  towards  all  or  any  part  of  these  beings  with  an  absolutely 
lawless  freedom  of  option.  It  is  a  horrible  assumption;  for,  if  true, 
He  is  not  a  moral  being,  and  can  do  no  moral  action.  He  can  ad- 
minister the  law  or  not,  reward  the  obedient  or  not,  punish  the  dis- 
obedient or  not,  treat  both  alike  or  not,  keep  truth  or  not  by  mere 
lawless  will.  He  can  be  neither  just  nor  unjust,  merciful  nor  un- 
merciful, deserving  of  love  and  honor  or  not,  as  He  can  be  no  moral 
actor,  and  can  have  no  moral  character.  These  objectors  have  no 
conception  of  a  real  moral  system,  which  is  necessarily  founded  in 
moral  natures,  having  the  law  in  and  from  them  as  a  constant  oblig- 
ing mandate  and  standard  of  the  heart-will  and  all  its  executive 
actions.  Nor,  as  a  side  remark,  does  it  ever  enter  the  heads  of 
many  of  them  that,  in  the  domain  of  morality,  it  is  not  the  intellect 
that  determines  the  heart-will  to  be  good  or  evil  and  to  right  or 
wrong  executive  action;  but  that  it  is  this  heart-will  that  instigates, 
leads,  directs,  and  determines  the  thinkings,  reasonings,  and  judg- 
ings  of  the  intellect,  and  the  correlated  desirings  and  feelings  of  the 
sensibility.  "As  a  man  thinJzeth  in  his  heart,  so  is  he,"  said  James 
profoundly.  The  objections  we  have  been  noticing  are  specimens 
of  the  superficial  thinkings  and  reasonings  of  many  respecting  the 
atonement  and  connected  points,  which,  thrown  out  by  public  and 
private  tongues  and  pens,  float  and  toss  on  the  surface  of  the  adapted 
general  mind  as  chips  do  on  water.  The  objections  to  points  con- 
nected with  the  atonement  all  imply  the  same  assumption  respect- 
ing God's  freedom  from  the  law  and  the  moral  system  which  is 
noted  above,  and  yet  uniformly  involve  their  own  contradiction. 
For,  when  objectors  say,  that  He  is  bound  or  ought  to  do  this,  or  not 
to  do  that;  that  He  would  do  wrong,  and  be  wicked  and  cruel,  if  He 
did  that,  and  did  not  do  this,  they  unawares  assume  that  He  is  a 
moral  being,  that  He  is  under  obligation  by  the  law  in  Him,  an4 
thus  that  He  is  in  the  universal  moral  society  and  system.  When- 
ever they  say  He  ought  or  ought  not  to  deal  with  or  treat  human 
sinners  so  or  so,  they  assume  all  just  stated;  but  when  they  say  He 
is  not  bound  to  deal  with  and  treat  them  according  to  the  law,  or 
the  demands  of  its  justice,  by  which  they  are  all  intertied  in  that 
society  and  system  with  all  the  reciprocities  of  obligation  and  ac- 
countability they  fundamentally  involve,  but  is  unrestrictedly  free  to 
deal  with  each  of  them  personally  as  if  not  intertied  in  them  and 
without  regard  to  the  law  which  constitutes  them,  and  to  all  the 
rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  all  in  them,  they  coaflictingly 
assume  that  the  law  is  not  in  Him,  that  He  is  not  in  that  society  and 


QUESTIONS  FOR  OBJECTORS,  295 

system,  but  is  free  to  disregard  them,  and  so  that  He  is  not  a  moral 
being.  Thus,  as  the  ante-natal  Esau  and  Jacob  strove  in  the  ma- 
ternal womb,  do  these  antagonist  assumptions  respecting  God  hold 
constant  strife  in  the  mental  wombs  of  all  objectors  to  the  atone- 
ment and  its  allied  points.  Nor  can  this  strife  ever  cease  in  any 
until  they  understandingly  accept  the  fact  of  the  atonement,  in 
which  alone  all  the  truths  respecting  God  as  a  moral  being,  and 
respecting  the  law  with  its  justice  in  all  moral  natures,  the  moral 
system  thus  constituted,  mercy  and  grace,  are  concentered  and  abso- 
lutely harmonized. 

§  168.    QUESTIONS    FOR   OBJECTORS   TO  THE   ATONEMENT  TO  CONSIDER. 

In  connection  with  the  foregoing,  we  now  ask  objectors  the 
questions  following.  How  is  such  really  vicarious  suffering  by  ; 
substitute,  as  we  have  shown  Christ's  was,  any  more  or  less  consist- 
ent with  the  law  or  its  justice  than  God's  acting  self-denial  and  self- 
sacrifice  fo7'  sinners  in  any  other  way  ? — for  example,  as  a  mother 
does  for  her  needy  and  suffering  child,  as  a  friend  does  for  a  dis- 
tressed friend,  or  as  a  patriot  does  for  his  afflicted  country?  If  self- 
denial  and  self-sacrifice  by  human  persons,  even  for  friends,  win 
praise  from  all,  and  the  more  the  greater  they  are,  shall  it  be  denied 
to  God  when  He  acts  them,  to  the  greatest  degree  possible  even  for 
Him?  and  shall  His  right,  power,  and  even  moral  liberty  to  act 
them  be  disputed?  Nay,  when  there  is  no  other  way  to  rescue  our 
world  of  sinners  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  the  punishment  they 
deserve  for  sin,  which  the  first  Part  of  this  Work  shows,  and  His 
infinite  mercy  impels  the  Father  to  act  these  to  the  degree  of  send- 
ing His  only-begotten  Son,  and  His  Son  to  act  them  to  the  degree 
of  executing  all  for  which  He  was  sent,  consummated  by  "giving 
Himself  for  us  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  "  in  His  suffer- 
ings and  death  as  our  representative  substitute  to  extricate  us  all 
from  that  necessity,  on  condition  of  our  moral  return  to  God,  shall 
the  compliance  of  each  of  these  Persons  with  that  boundless  mercy 
for  that  end  be  objected  to  as  in  any  possible  way  unjust,  incon- 
sistent, or  unnecessary,  not  by  angels  nor  devils,  but  by  the  very 
sinners  themselves  who  are  the  objects  of  such  mercy  and  cost  of 
both?  If,  among  men,  one  deserves  the  penalty  ot  death  for  crime, 
how  else  could  another  suffer /tr  him,  so  as  to  free  him  from  the 
necessity  of  suffering  it  himself,  than  by  dying  in  his  stead?  Or,  if 
one  can  only  save  another  from  penal  death  by  dying  for  him,  if  he 
does  so  is  he  not  necessarily  his   substitute?     How  then  can  any 


296  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

object  without  utter  absurdity  to  the  substitution  of  Christ  for  man- 
kind? How  is  it  iiot  just  as  consistent  with  the  justice  of  the  law 
and  the  moral  system  constituted  by  it  as  His  helping  men  in  any 
other  way,  as  His  curing  their  diseases  or  restoring  their  dead  to 
life?  Since  the  matter  of  the  law  is  pure  moral  love,  and  its  end'\% 
the  greatest  good  of  God  and  all  in  the  universal  moral  society;  and 
since  its  justice  is  the  eternal  safeguard  of  both;  by  what  possibility 
can  His  voluntary  substitution  of  Himself  in  His  sufferings  and 
death  for  mankind  to  retrieve  them  from  the  necessity  of  suffering 
deserved  retributive  punishment,  under  the  impulsion  of  His  infi- 
nite philanthropy  and  mercy,  be  inconsistent  in  any  way  with  the 
law,  as  to  its  matter,  its  end,  or  its  justice?  How  can  it  be  so  for 
Him,  as  their  representative,  perfectly  to  render  its  matter  to  secure 
its  end  hy  meeting  the  demands  of  its  justice,  both  as  ethical  to  the 
loyal  society  and  to  God,  and  as  retributive  against  sinners,  that  as 
many  as  possible  of  them  might  be  saved  from  everlasting  ruin, 
restored  to  God,  and  added,  incalculably  numerous,  to  the  hosts 
which  He  only  can  count  of  that  eternal  society?  How  can  it  be  less 
than  the  unapproached  manifestation  of  the  fulfillment  of  the  law 
ever  acted  or  to  be  acted  by  Christ  or  the  Godhead,  ever  known  or 
to  be  known  by  the  intelligent  universe?  It  was  justice  and  mercy 
absolutely  combined  by  the  infinite  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice 
of  God. 

§  169.    A  STATEMENT  BY  BUSHNELL    RESPECTING    LOVE  EXAMINED. 

With  these  questions  and  all  our  preceding  showings  respecting 
the  substitution  of  Christ  before  us,  what  must  be  thought  of  this 
respecting  love: — "  It  does  not  come  in  officiously  and  abruptly,  and 
propose  to  be  substituted  in  a  formal  and  literal  way  that  overturns 
all  the  moral  relations  of  law  and  desert?"*  We  ask  how,  when  it 
comes  in  Christ  to  make  substitution  for  human  sinners,  it  comes 
as  the  quotation  says  any  more  than  when  it  comes  in  some  dif- 
ferent way  to  rescue  them  frorri  deserved  evil,  or  than  it  does 
in  all  acts  and  measures  of  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  to  res- 
cue them  from  such  evil  ?  All  acts  and  measures  of  God, 
whether  of  justice  or  of  mercy,  are  necessarily  not  officious,  but 
official,  simply  because  they  are  executive  and  administrative. 
They  are  not  love,  but  actings  from  it  for  special  ends;  and  God's 
are  all  such  according  to  infinite  wisdom  to  secure  the  great  social 
ends  of  the  nature  of  social-moral  beings,  of  the  law  with  its  justice 

(*)  Bushnell's  V.  S.,  p.  42. 


JUSTICE  DISCARDED.  2.(^1 

in  them,  and  of  His  government  over  them  as  such  beings;  so  that 
they  never  can  be  abrupt  in  any  other  sense  than  that  in  which  all 
right,  benevolent,  and  wise  acts  and  measures  must  be.  Nor  is  sub- 
stitution, as  it  really  is,  "formal  and  literal"  in  any  other  sense  than 
that  in  which  all  acts  and  measures  of  administration  must  be;  and 
as  to  its  "overturning  all  the  moral  relations  of  law  and  desert,"  it 
is,  as  we  have  shown,  the  very  and  only  thing  which  fundamentr.lly 
supports  them  and  keeps  them  from  being  utterly  overturned,  and 
which  demonstrates  that  they  are  as  firm  and  fixed  as  the  pillars  of 
the  universe.  It  demonstrates  that  justice  is  no  thing  of  mere  inven- 
tion and  institution,  but  an  essential  of  the  law  in  all  moral  natures 
and  of  the  changeless  and  eternal  moral  system;  and  that  all  the 
tumid  sentimentalisms  connected  with  this  quotation  and  others 
which  stock  the  whole  Work  it  is  from  and  its  successor,  and  all 
kindred  Works  and  sermons,  are  intrinsically,  and  especially  if 
arrayed  against  substitution  and  the  truths  and  facts  it  involves,  in 
mortal  war  with  "all  the  moral  relations  of  law  and  desert,"  and  all 
vital  morality  and  theology.  The  objections  in  the  quotation,  and 
^11  others  like  them,  are  mere  chimeras;  and  the  position  remains 
solid,  that  Christ's  substitution  of  Himself  in  His  sufferings  and 
death  for  mankind  as  liable  to  suffer  retributive  punishment  for  their 
sins  must  be  the  one  peerless  exhibition  in  the  history  of  the  uni- 
verse and  of  God  Himself,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  absolute  love 
with  it§  essential  justice  which  the  law  requires,  and  on  the  other,  of 
the  infinitude  of  His  mercy  and  grace  towards  the  hostile,  self-ruined 
sinners  of  our  race. 

§  170.    IF  JUSTICE    AS    RETRIBUTIVE    IS    DISCARDED,    SO    MUST  IT   BE  AS 
ethical;    and  the    certain   RESULT. 

We  have  shown  that  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  are  no  part 
of  the  real  retributive  penalty  of  the  law  for  it,  although  abandon- 
ment of  sinners  to  them  is.  The  penalty  is  suffering  inflicted  by 
God  according  to  their  sins  or  ill-deserts.  Its  severity  is  not  equal 
to  all,  but  is  proportioned  to  each  as  he  deserves.  The  demand  of 
justice  against  each  is  for  it  in  this  measure  as  ethically  due  to  God 
and  the  universal  loyal  society  both  instead  of  the  moral  love  he 
owed  them  and  has  robbed  them  of,  and  as  the  only  possible  repar- 
ation from  him  for  the  wrong  and  injury  he  has  done  them.  As 
this  due  is  not  to  God  only,  but  to  the  whole  society  as  well  as  to 
Him,  it  is  not  a  mere  personal  matter  to  Him  to  forgive  him,  even 
if  he  should  repent,  since  He  is  Ruler,  and  could  have  no  possible 


298  THE  A  TONE  ME  NT  OF  CHRIST. 

right  to  do  so,  as  it  would  be  replacing  him  in  the  society  with  all 
the  rights  of  the  obedient  restored  to  him  without  its  due  from  him 
being  in  any  way  met.  It  would  be  an  arbitrary  violation  of  uni- 
versal justice  and  an  eternal  wrong  and  injury  to  all  in  the  society, 
as  it  would  in  effect  declare  both  sin  and  obedience  and  all  their 
consequences  of  insignificant  importance.  It  would  nullify  the  law 
with  its  justice  and  so  leave  its  matter  without  enforcement;  and  it 
would  thus  dissolve  the  whole  moral  society  to  monads,  and  the  moral 
system  to  nonenity.  There  is,  therefore,  an  infinite  obligation  on  Goa 
to  inflict  retributive  suffering  on  every  sinner,  unless  He  provides  a 
substitute  to  suffer  an  infliction  in  his  stead  which  will  at  least 
equally  meet  the  demands  of  justice  against  him  and  to  Himself 
and  His  universal  and  eternal  society.  We  have  repeated  this  here 
to  have  it  seen  that  the  due  or  debt  of  every  sinner  is  necessarily 
social,  so  that  the  natural  consequences  of  his  sin,  which  are  per- 
sonal and  not  social,  cannot  be  the  payment  of  this  social  due  or  debt, 
and  that  its  only  possible  payment  is  punitive  suffering  to  the 
measure  of  ill-desert,  inflicted  by  God  as  the  necessarily  responsible 
Ruler  of  the  universal  loyal  society.  Without  a  substitute,  the  retrib- 
utive suffering  of  all  sinners  as  they  deserve  is  the  keystone  of  the  arch  oj 
the  universal  moral  system;  but,  with  Him,  His  representative  suffering 
instead  of  that  of  human  sinners  is  at  07ice  that  keystone,  and  the  channel 
for  the  flow  of  the  river  of  God's  mercy  and  grace  to  all  of  them  will- 
ing to  drink  its  life-giving  waters.  If  it  is  inflicted  on  neither  them 
nor  Him,  the  intelligent  universe  is  utterly  loose  from  social  account- 
ability, whatever  its  countless  units  may  do  or  become,  a  moral 
chaos  resembling  what  the  universe  would  be  if  the  force  of  attrac- 
tion acting  by  its  law  were  abolished.  If  there  is  no  justice  as  re- 
tributive, there  can  be  none  as  ethical,  and  so  no  social-moral  bond 
and  no  social-moral  love.  Hence,  all  the  raptures  and  rhetoric  of 
sentimental  writers,  preachers,  and  talkers  about  love,  love,  love  of 
any  kind,  not  moral,  not  just,  not  obedience  to  the  law  and  its  obli- 
gations, but  of  merely  emotional,  sympathetic  kind,  like  in  nature 
to  the  natural  love  of  parents,  to  that  of  friends,  to  that  of  a  patriot 
for  his  country,  or  to  any  compatible  with  persistent  sin  or  even 
enormous  wickedness,  would  forever  lack  utterance;  and,  instead  of 
them,  would  be  their  opposites,  if  any  remained  uningulfed  in  utmost 
selfishness  and  depravity  to  utter  them,  sorrowful  lamentations  and 
fierce  invectives  by  tongue  and  pen,  poetic  threnodies,  Juvenalish 
and  Aristophanic  satires  and  mockeries  over  the  race  sunk  and 
festering  in  inexpressible  corruptions  and  horrors  of  inhumanity, 


CHRIST'S  SUFFERINGS,  299 

beastliness,  villainies,  crimes,  and  anarchies,  raving  and  raging  with 
deviltries  and  dynamite.  Even  the  condition  of  the  heathen  world 
depicted  by  Paul  in  Rom.  1:18-32  would  be  universally  outdone.  A 
fig  for  all  sentimentalities  arrayed  against,  or  not  accordant  with, 
eternal  justice,  both  as  ethical  and  as  retributive;  but  life  to  all  that 
truly  are.  The  only  alternative  then  for  all  human  sinners  was  the 
necessary  perdition  of  every  one  of  them  or  the  representative  sub- 
stitution of  Christ  to  meet  the  demands  of  justice  against  him.  But 
we  have  digressed  from  what  we  chiefly  designed  to  say  in  this  par- 
agraph, and  must  resume  it  in  another. 

§  171.    WHY  CHRIST'S  SUFFERINGS  MUST  BE  INFLICTED  BY  THE  FATHER'S 
WILL,  AND  WOULD  SAVE  MEASURELESS  SUFFERING. 

We  have  shown  that  the  penalty  of  the  law  is  punishment 
inflicted  hy  God  on  sinners  after  their  probation  ends  according  to 
each  one's  ill-desert;  that  Christ  equivalently  suffered  this  punish- 
ment for  them  all  as  their  representative  substitute  according  to  the 
redemptive  arrangement  between  the  Father  and  Him;  and  that, 
being  such  a  substitute.  His  suffering  need  not,  at  most,  surpass 
that  of  any  most  guilty  one  of  our  race,  as  what  would  be  equiv- 
alent to  that  deserved  by  one  would  be  to  that  deserved  by  any,  and 
would  thus  equal  in  moral  potency  and  effect  the  deserved  suffering 
of  all.  We  have  also  shown  that,  considering  His  Person,  His  rela- 
tions to  God,  to  the  universal  society,  and  to  man,  and  His  reasons 
and  motives,  subjective  and  objective,  for  becoming  all  that  He  did, 
for  becoming  the  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  the  representa- 
tive of  man  to  God  in  His  whole  course  of  obedience  to  its  close, 
and  in  "giving  Himself  for  him  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God" 
— considering  all  this,  His  substitution  had  in  it  a  moral  value  and 
potency  immeasurably  exceeding  what  the  suffering  by  all  men  of 
their  deserved  punishment  could  possibly  have  had,  not  only  to 
meet  the  demands  of  justice  against  them,  but  to  replenish  the 
eternal  holy  society  with  incomputable  increase  of  numbers  and  of 
all  possible  good,  besides  throwing  wide  open  the  flood-gates  of 
God's  mercy  and  grace  to  pour  abroad  benefits  and  salvation  to 
mankind.  Now,  what  we  wish  to  be  specially  noticed  here  is,  that, 
as  the  punishment  deserved  by  human  sinners  was  to  be  inflicted  by 
God  as  Ruler,  it  was  necessary  that  Christ's  suffering  it,  as  their 
representative  substitute,  should  also  be  inflicted  by  Him — the  inflic- 
tion in  either  case  being  by  Him  as  Ruler,  in  order  to  have  a  uni- 
versally  social  effect.     As   theirs   was   to  be   inflicted   by  God,  so 


300  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

Christ's  must  be  to  be  the  same  in  kind  equally  social,  and  so  to  meet 
the  demands  of  justice  against  them  and  to  secure  its  ends  which 
are  all  social.  It  is  certainly  impossible  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
that  one  should  assume  to  suffer  in  the  place  of  any  number  of 
others  condemned  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  violated  law,  to  free  them 
from  the  necessity  of  suffering  it,  unless  he  assumes  to  suffer  it 
essentially  as  they  would.  God's  omniscience  would  infallibly  see 
just  what  measure  of  suffering  it  would  be  necessary  for  Him  to  in- 
flict on  Christ  as  substitute  as  equivalent  to  that  deserved  by  any 
sinner  of  the  race,  and  that  He  would  inflict,  and  no  more.  We 
thus  see  that  the  substitution  of  Christ  in  His  suffering  and  death 
would  be  a  measureless  saving  of  suffering  and  addition  of  happi- 
ness forever  in  the  universe.  It  is  such  in  proportion  to  the  whole 
number  of  mankind  saved  in  consequence  of  it  from  all  their  de- 
served punishment,  and  made  perfectly  and  eternally  holy  and 
blessed;  and  it  must  proportionally  augment  the  happiness  of  all 
holy  beings  through  endless  ages,  as  also  an  eternal  gain  of  pleasure 
and  glory  to  God  Himself,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost;  -for  each 
had  His  part  in  achieving  it.  When  we  come  to  examine  the  teach- 
ings of  Scripture  respecting  the  part  of  the  Father  towards  Christ 
in  relation  to  His  atoning  sufferings  and  death,  we  shall  see  that 
they  were  inflicted  upon  Him  by  the  Father  according  to  the  ever- 
lasting plan  of  redemption.  As  retributive  justice  to  sinners  is  ethical 
Justice  to  the  universal  society,  and  thus  universally  social,  so  the  sub- 
stitutio?ial  suffering  of  the  former  by  Christ  is  the  latter  to  that  society, 
atid  thus  necessarily  equally  universally  social. 

§  172.    GOD  NOT  IMPASSIBLE. 

We  have  all  along  disregarded  the  old  dogma,  broached  by  the 
heretical  Noetus  in  the  first  half  of  the  third  Christian  century,  and 
adopted  just  after  him  by  the  great  orthodox  champion,  Athanasius, 
that  God  is  wholly  impassible.  We,  of  course,  agree  that  He  is  in- 
capable of  physical  or  essetitial  suffering,  fully  recognizing  the  im- 
mutability of  His  nature.  But  He  is  a  moral  being,  and  has  the 
sensibility  and  susceptibilities  of  one  in  an  infinite  degree.  The 
Scriptures  abound  with  declarations  and  implications  of  most  intense 
feelings  in  Him — of  indignation  and  anger  against  sinners — of  pity, 
compassion,  and  sympathy  for  their  sufferings — of  sorrow  and  grief  for 
their  conduct — of  complacent  love  for  all  who  love  and  obey  Him — 
of  every  kind  of  holy  emotion  and  passion,  not  necessarily  peculiar 
to  mere  finite  natures;  and  none  of  these  can  be  true  of  Him,  if  He 


GOD  NOT  IMPASSIBLE.  301 

is  impassible.  We  must  not  deny  nor  weaken,  but  simply  purify 
our  conceptions  of  the  emotions  and  passions  ascribed  to  Him  from 
the  corruptions  and  taints  which  more  or  less  pervade  and  pervert 
those  of  the  same  kind  experienced  and  manifested  by  human  sin- 
ners; and  then  we  must  believe  theirs,  compared  with  His,  as  to 
their  measure  and  intensity,  as  mere  drops  of  water  compared  with 
oceans.  And  now,  what  enlightened  observer  or  subject  of  what 
are  called  bodily  pains  and  torments,  it  matters  not  from  what 
causes,  does  not  know  that  it  is  really  not  the  body,  but  the  soul 
that  suffers?  The  body  of  Christ  iii  itself  suffered  nothing  from  all 
outrages  heaped  upon  Him. .  His  bodily  injuries  were  the  occas- 
ioning causes  of  all  the  pains  He  felt  from  them.  As  the  Divine 
and  human  natures  were  united  in  Him  into  one  Person,  having  one 
consciousness,  and  as  His  Divine  nature  must,  as  shown,  have  had 
an  infinite  sensibility  and  susceptibility,  how  is  it  conceivable  that 
it  should  not  have  been  pervaded  with  an  infinite  suffering  sympathy 
with  His  human  soul  in  His  whole  expiatory  endurance?  How  is  it 
possible  that  His  Divine  nature  should  have  remained,  like  an  infi- 
nite Stoic,  impassible,  unmoved  by  the  terrible  inflictions  under 
which  His  human  soul  was  writhing  in  agonies,  beside  which  all  the 
pains  from  and  the  death  of  His  body,  appalling  as  they  were,  were 
far  inferior,  and  which  that  nature,  yet  unincarnate,  had  assumed  to 
bear,  and  had  become  incarnate  in  great  part  to  bear  ?  Yet  accord- 
ing to  this  notion  of  the  impassibility  of  God,  the  only  part  that 
nature  had  in  bearing  any  of  them  was  that  of  supporting  the  human 
in  doing  it!  How  can  this  consist  with  a  real  union  of  the  two  in 
one  Person? — with  the  fact  that  the  Divine  is  a  moral  one? — with 
the  fact,  that  the  Person  who  atones  for  the  sins  of  mankind  by  suf- 
fering as  their  representative  substitute  the  penalty  of  the  law  de- 
served by  them  must  be  truly  God  as  well  as  man,  the  one  Mediator 
between  God  and  man? — with  the  multiplied  Scriptural  assertions 
of  the  vast  love  of  the  Father  for  mankind  in  giving  His  only-begot- 
ten Son,  His  own  Son,  the  Son  of  His  love,  and  of  the  Son  in  giving 
Himself,  to  suffer  all  He  did  to  expiate  the  sins  of  the  whole  world? 
— or  with  the  whole  nature  of  the  case?  If  we  are  told  that,  if  the 
Divine  nature  of  Christ  suffered,  then,  as  it  is  one  in  essence  with 
the  Father's  and  the  Holy  Spirit's,  each  of  these  must  have  suffered 
equally  with  it,  and,  as  God  is  omniscient  and  immutable,  we  must 
conclude  that  the  whole  Godhead  has  suffered  and  will  suffer  eter- 
nally, and  thus  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  nature  and  attributes  of 
God  to  suDDOse  that  Christ's  Divine  nature  suffered,  we  here  reply 


302  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

as  follows: — These  difficulties  are  purely  speculative  about  matters 
utterly  incomprehensible  by  human  minds;  we  encounter  them 
equally  in  considering  other  truths  concerning  God;  they  conflict 
with  the  whole  current  of  the  teachings  of  Scripture  concerning 
God;  they  are  therefore  of  no  weight  against  the  position  that 
Christ's  Divine  nature  did  suffer,  as  all  moral  natures  can,  as  really 
as  did  His  human,  and  in  its  proportion.  This  position  is  not  one 
of  speculation,  but  is  perfectly  comprehensible  by  human  minds, 
and  is  demanded  by  the  whole  nature  of  the  atonement,  and  by  the 
facts,  that  God  is  a  moral  being,  and,  as  such,  must  have  an  infinite 
sensibility,  and  that  His  Word  teaches  us  that  He  is  full  of  pity  for 
sufferers,  sympathizing,  merciful,  pleased  with  the  obedient  and 
angry  with  the  disobedient,  and  that  He  has  all  the  holy  emotions 
and  passions  connected  with  absolute  benevolence  and  justice.  Nor 
would  it  be  difficult  to  show,  that,  instead  of  the  suffering  of  the 
Divine  nature  of  Christ  proportionally  with  His  human,  in  its  way, 
being  incompatible  with  its  perfect  blessedness,  it  was  really  essential 
to  it,  and  that  it  no  more  conflicts  with  the  immutability  of  God 
than  His  emotions  of  grief,  indignation,  or  any  others.  We  only 
add,  that  it  is  our  conviction,  that  this  old  dogma  has,  from  the 
time  of  Athanasius  down,  wherever  taught  and  believed,  been  a 
block  in  the  way  of  understanding  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement, 
which  is  fundamental  to,  and  one  of  the  most  sublime  and  precious 
in,  Christianity,  the  supreme  manifestation  of  the  unspeakable  mer- 
ciful love  of  God  towards  sinful,  guilty  man.  The  whole  Church 
ought  to  rejoice  with  songs  and  shouts  of  jubilation,  that,  like  the 
stone  from  the  door  of  the  sepulcher  of  Jesus,  it  has  been  rolled 
away,  so  that  it  and  all  willing  to  look  may  see  Him  in  all  His  re- 
deeming love  and  glory,  and  the  Father  and  Holy  Spirit  with  Him. 


W' 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Whether-  there  tvas  an  obligation  on  God  to  provide  an  atonement 
for  huniati  sinners,  such  as  we  have  shoiun. 

§  173.    THE  POSITION  OF  THE  REFORMERS  ON  THIS  POINT  NOTICED. 

The  question  here  for  consideration  is,  whether  the  law  in  God's 
nature,  by  its  obliging  imperative  or  mandate  required  Him  to  pro- 
vide a  representative  substitute  to  assume  and  undergo  a  suffering 
fully  equivalent  in  moral  value  and  potency  of  influence  to  that 
deserved  by  mankind  for  their  sins,  to  be  a  provisional  ground  for 
the  forgiveness  of  every  one  of  them  who  would  truly  return  to  Him 
in  the  moral  way  of  faith  and  obedience  enjoined  in  the  Gospel. 
This  question  lacks  and  demands  a  thorough  consideration. 

The  Reformation  was  a  return  to  the  Scriptural  doctrines  of 
grace  from  the  perversions  of  it.  Its  struggles  and  battles  were 
waged  with  llaming  zeal  around  these  doctrines  as  the  fortresses  of 
Christianity;  and  everything  was  inexorably  expelled  from  the  lines 
of  the  renewed  faith,  which,  in  the  Reformers'  minds,  was  incon- 
sistent with  the  radical  truth,  that  all  salvation  comes  to  man  as 
pure  "grace  through  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus."  The 
leaders  among  them  were  by  nature  of  the  grandest  order  of  human 
souls,  and  still  more  such  by  their  devoted  allegiance  to  what  they 
believed  to  be  the  true  Gospel  of  Christ.  But  they  were  men,  as  it 
were  just  aroused  from  a  profound  sleep,  and  were  not  infallible. 
In  their  time,  mental  and  moral  science  was  yet  crude,  and  the  book 
of  consciousness,  which  contains  it,  was  little  studied  for  the  pur- 
pose of  learning  the  true  psychology.  It  is  not,  therefore,  to  be 
wondered  at  and  noted  for  their  disparagement,  that,  in  their  rightly 
fervent  zeal  for  the  doctrines  of  grace,  and  their  mistaken  view  of 
the  human  will,  as  not  the  free  self-determiner  and  author  of  its 
own  moral  choices  in  view  of  motives,  and  under  whatever  influ- 
ences, and  thus  only  responsible  and  deserving  of  praise  or  blame, 


304  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

reward  or  punishment  for  them,  they  failed  to  make  some  important 
discriminations,  to  make  even  an  approach  to  a  reconciliation 
between  God's  sovereignty  and  man's  freedom,  and  between  what  is 
true  of  God  and  what  of  man,  made  in  Mis  image  as  a  moral  nature 
and  agent.  It  was  a  matter  of  course,  that  they  should  suppose  and 
assume  that  the  notion  of  grace  excludes  obligation  on  God,  in  any 
sense,  to  exercise  it;  that  it  was  wholly  optional  with  him  to  do  so 
or  not  in  any  case;  and  that  their  view  of  these  points  should 
remain  a  settled  tenet  in  the  reformed  Churches  adhering  to  their 
teachings.  In  his  Work,  misnamed  "Vicarious  Sacrifice,  '  Dr.  Bush- 
nell  came  forward  asserting  directly  the  opposite  view  in  most 
unqualified  terms.  We  had  considered  the  matter  for  years  before 
that  Work  appeared,  and  had  reached  the  conclusions  we  now  pro- 
ceed to  present.  It  will  be  seen  by  those  cognizant  of  his  sweeping 
view,  that  ours  is  very  different  from  it.  We  deem  this  statement 
necessary  to  secure  a  just  consideration  of  ours,  to  the  presentation 
of  which  we  now  invite  attention. 

§  174.       NO  OBLIGATION  ON    GOD  TO  SINNERS  TO  MAKE  AN  ATONEMENT 
FOR  THEM,  OR  TO  SAVE  THEM;    NOR  TO  OTHER  BEINGS. 

We*believe  we  have  shown  conclusively  that  all  moral  beings, 
God  included,  have  essentially  the  same  law  in  and  from  their 
nature;  that  justice  is  the  intrinsic  quality  of  this  law,  which  gives 
it  its  social  character  by  putting  each  of  them  under  its  bond  of 
obligation  to  render  to  every  other  his  due  of  moral  love  and  of  all 
kinds  of  treatment  which  men  call  duties;  and  that,  by  thus  binding 
all  to  these  perpetual  antiselfish  and  holy  reciprocities,  it  consti- 
tutes them  all  into  a  universal  and  eternal  moral  society  and  system, 
with  God,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  necessarily  in  them,  and  the 
responsible  Ruler  of  the  whole  society  and  Maintainer  of  the  system. 
We  have  shown  that,  as  all  sin  is  violation  of  the  law  with  this  qual- 
ity of  justice  in  it,  it  is,  in  principle,  intrinsically  antagonist  to  the 
total  universal  society  and  system  with  God  in  and  over  them,  to 
all  the  natural  and  moral  rights  and  dues  of  all  in  them,  to  all  moral 
love  and  practical  justice,  and  to  all  the  interests  and  concerns  of 
all  in  that  society,  including  God  both  as  a  Person  and  as  Ruler; 
and  that  its  actors  therefore  forfeit  all  their  rights  to  the  love  of  God 
and  of  all  in  that  society,  and  deserve  nothing  but  retributive  pun- 
ishment according  to  their  guilt.  Consequently,  the  imperative  or 
mandate  in  God's  mind  can  enjoin  nothing  towards  them  as  due  to 
them  on  any  ground  whatever  of  justice,  unless  it  be,  that  He  shall 


NO  ODLIGA  TION  OM  GOD.  305 

not  treat  any  of  them  worse  than  his  ill-desert  and  the  whole  end  of 
the  law  demand.  Hence,  instead  of  the  justice  of  the  law  being  _/yr 
them,  as  it  is  for  all  holy  beings,  it  is  turned  positively  against  them 
and  demands  their  punishment  according  to  their  desert.  This 
demand  must  be  met  either  by  their  suffering  the  punishment  them- 
selves, in  which  case  they  must  be  forever  lost,  or  by  a  representa- 
tive substitute,  provided  by  God  from  His  mercy,  suffering  it  in  their 
stead,  in  which  case  whoever  of  them  will  return  to  God  during  the 
gracious  probation  granted  with  the  provision,  will  be  saved.  But, 
to  say  that  He  was  under  any  obligation  to  them  to  make  this  sub- 
stitution is  to  say  that  they  had  a  right  to  have  it  made  by  Him,  and 
so  that  His  making  it  is  demanded  by  justice,  and  not  purely  a 
measure  of  mercy  and  grace.  There  never  can  be  an  obligation  of 
justice  on  God  or  any  other  being  to  the  objects  of  mercy,  to  exer- 
cise it  to  them;  for,  if  there  were,  mercy  would  be  no  more  mercy, 
and  grace  no  more  grace.  He  can  put  Himself  under  an  obligation 
of  promise  to  them,  but  the  promise  is  mercy  and  grace,  and  the 
obligation  is  not  directly  one  ot  the  law,  but  one  voluntarily 
assumed  under  it.  Hence,  whatever  He  does  for  human  sinners 
vicariously  or  otherwise  must  be  done  without  any  obligation  of 
justice  upon  Him  to  them.  Mercy,  as  a  disposition,  is  the  will,  and, 
as  an  exercise,  is  the  effort,  to  do  for  the  guilty  whatever  is  consistently 
possible  to  secure  or  promote  their  rescue  from  pmiishment  merely  for 
the  sake  of  their  good,  and  the  resulting  good  of  others.  Its  direct 
aim  is  restricted  to  each  of  its  objects.  It  is  exercised  and  acted 
by  God  towards  each  of  them  to  secure  his  good  for  the  sake  of 
what  it  is  to  him,  and  therefore  is  not  social  in  the  universal  sense  in 
which  justice  is.  Consequently,  its  aim  and  action  must  consist 
with  that  of  justice,  so  that  it  can  be  acted  only  when  and  as  wisdom 
directs.  Wisdom  stands  in  eternal  league  with  justice,  and  can 
sanction  no  effort  of  mercy  for  any  sinner  which  does  not  consist 
with  the  rights,  dues,  and  good  of  all  holy  beings,  which  justice 
guards.  Hence,  if  there  was  any  obligation  on  God  to  exercise  and 
act  mercy  towards  human  sinners  in  any  way,  it  was  net  one  to 
them,  not  one  to  secure  or  promote  the  good  of  any  of  them  irre- 
spective of  His  own  good  and  that  of  all  holy  beings.  Nor  could 
He  be  under  any  to  the  universal  holy  society  to  provide  an  atone- 
ment for  human  sinners,  however  much  the  salvation  of  any  num- 
ber of  these  secured  by  it  would  accord  with  and  promote  the  good 
of  that  society;  for  it  could  have  no  right  to  call  on  Him  to  provide 
it,  or  which  could,  in  any  sense,  make  it  due  to  it  from  Him.    What 


3o6  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

the  law  requires  of  Him  to  it  is  the  full,  unmodified,  moral  love, 
which  is  its  matter,  and  His  rendering  this  to  it  includes  His  pun- 
ishing sinners  as  they  deserve,  instead  of  His  exempting  them  from 
punishment.  He  could  only  come  under  an  obligation  to  it  to  pro- 
vide an  atonement  for  them  in  the  same  way  as  to  sinners  them- 
selves— that  is,  by  a  promise  to  it  that  He  would,  or  by  declaring  to 
it  His  purpose  to  do  so.  It  is  therefore  certain,  that  He  was  under 
no  obligation  to  any  created  beings,  bad  or  good,  to  provide  one  for 
mankind;  and  it  is  equally  so,  that  He  was  under  none  to  Himself 
in  the  same  sense.  For  He  had  no  right  or  claim  against  Himself  to 
make  it  dtie  to  Himself  to  provide  it.  The  unmodified  love  of  Him- 
self required  by  the  law  would  have  been  perfectly  rendered  to 
Himself  by  His  punishing  human  sinners  as  they  deserve.  If  He 
was  under  the  least  obligation  to  the  holy  society  or  to  Himself  to 
provide  an  atonement  for  them,  His  doing  so  would  be  executing 
mere  justice,  and  not  mercy  and  grace.  But  is  this  saying  that  there 
was  no  obligation  upon  Him  in  any  sense  to  provide  one  for  mankind? 

§  175.  god's  creation  by  the  best  possible  plan,  and  why  he 
spared  the  first  pair  when  they  sinned. 

To  find  the  true  answer  to  this  question,  we  must  consider  the 
main  facts  of  the  whole  case.  Both  Scripture  and  the  whole  aspect 
and  constitution  of  worlds  and  creatures  attest  that  God  created 
them  according  to  an  all-including  purpose  or  plan,  as  set  forth  in 
§  100; — a  plan  of  universally  correlated  means  and  ends,  and  one 
which,  we  may  assume  with  certainty,  was  the  best  possible.  As 
this  plan  of  the  universe  embraced  all  its  parts — all  its  material 
atoms,  all  the  force-essences  with  their  laws  which  operate  upon 
those  atoms  and  effect  their  combinations,  correlations,  and  motions, 
but  are  not  inherent  in  or  qualities  of  them,  all  life,  all  varieties  and 
species  of  living  organisms,  vegetable  and  animal,  and  all  varieties 
and  species  or  kinds  of  minds,  sentient,  instinctive,  and  rational,  the 
rational  being  all  moral — none  of  all  these  parts  could  be  left  out  of 
it  without  either  the  abandonment  of  the  plan,  or  more  or  less  dam- 
aging failure  in  its  execution.  But,  if  the  plan  was  the  best  that  the 
infinite  wisdom  of  God  could  devise,  we  may  be  perfectly  sure  that 
in  executing  it,  He  never  has  varied  from  it,  even  to  a  hair-breadth, 
and  never  will,  because  He  can  never  be  wiser,  nor  have  any  motive 
to  do  so.  By  adopting  the  plan,  He  bound  Himself  to  its  perfect 
and  perpetual  execution.  Neither  matter  nor  any  force  with  its 
law,  which  operates  upon  it,  exists  for,  or  is  an  end  in,  itself.     The 


GOD'S  CREATION.  3°? 

same  is  true  of  the  entire  vegetable  kingdom,  and  really  of  the  whole 
animal  kingdom  below  men,  as  far  as  this  world  is  concerned.     As 
far  as  the   permanent  force-essences  of  the  universe  relate   to  and 
operate  upon  our  globe,  and  in  it,  no  dwellings,  engines,  machinery, 
or  instruments  of  man's  invention  are  more  manifestly  designedly 
aimed  to  secure  necessities  for   his  existence,  and   advantages  and 
benefits  to  him,  than  these  are;  and  no  less  manifestly  is  the  same 
true   of  both   the   vegetable   and   the  irrational    animal    kingdoms. 
Science  must  recognize  teleology  or  brand  itself  with  willfully  alien- 
ating an  essential  part  of  its  constituent  truth  and  integrity.     The 
plain  fact  is,  that  our  globe  and  all  its  contents  and  processes  were 
designed  means  for  the  existence  and  benefit  of  man  as  the  consum- 
mate end  oi  all.     He  is  such,   because  he  is  an  end  in  himself;  and 
he  is  so,  because,  though,  as  to  his  body,  he  belongs  to  the  animal 
kingdom,  its  crown  and  glory,  as  to  his  mind,  he  is  a  spirit,  a  rational, 
moral,  immortal  nature,  the  peer  or  paramount  of  all  other  such 
natures,  the  image  and  likeness  of  his  Creator.     The  first  pair  were 
made  with  a  race-constitution,  and  thus  all  their  posterity  seminally 
in  them;  and  the  New  Testament  abundantly  shows,  that,  as  con- 
nected with   Christ,   the   redeemed  of  them  will   outrank  all  other 
moral  natures  in  the  universe  and  be  of  supreme  importance  to  the 
ever  multiplying  universal   and   eternal   society.     It  is  often  asked 
why,  when  the  first  pair   sinned,  God  did  not  cut  them  off  before 
they  had  offspring,  and  create  another  in  their  stead;  and  we  think 
the  foregoing  supplies  some  liints  towards  an  answer.    If  He  created 
the  total  universe  according  to  the  best  possible  plan,  which  His 
omniscient  wisdom  could  devise.  He  created  every  part  of  it  accord- 
ing to  the  same,  and  all  the  parts,  not  as  separate  from,  but  as  cor- 
related and  intertied  to  each  other  in  the  everlasting  whole.     He 
must  create  the  first  pair  precisely  according  to  this  best  plan,  if  at 
all,  though  perfectly  foreknowing  their  fall  and  its  involved  effects 
in  all  their  posterity.     We  may  infer  with  certainty  that,  if  He  had 
created  them  at  all  otherwise,  the  results  would  have  been  worse, 
probably  wholly  remediless.     And,  when   they  sinned,  if  God  had 
cut  them  off  and  created  a  second  pair.  He  could  only  have  repeated 
the  first,  it  may  be  with  far  worse  results.     Besides,  the  best  plan  of 
the  whole,  and  of  every  part  as  related  to  all  the  others,  may  have 
required,  and  doubtless  did  require,  that  He  should  preserve  the 
fallen   pair   and  their   foreseen  race,  though  so   damaged  by  their 
sin.    We  say  it  doubtless  did  require  this,  because  He  did  so,  despite 
all  that  He  knew  would  be  true  of  them,   and  at  such  stupendous 


3o8  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

cost  to  Himself.  But,  along  with  preserving  the  race,  He  knew  all 
the  temptation  from  the  devil,  the  world,  and  the  flesh  that  would 
beset  all  the  individuals  of  its  generations,  all  their  susceptibilities 
to  them,  the  bias  of  tl^eir  will  from  obedience  to  sin  and  all  their 
evil  tendencies,  the  selfishness  of  their  first  moral  choice  between 
obedience  to  the  law  and  self-gratification,  and  their  continuance  in 
it  until  or  unless  regenerated,  all  the  natural  and  social  consequences 
of  it,  their  guilt  or  desert  of  punishment  for  it,  and  all  their  wrong 
doings  from  it;  and  He  knew  the  absolute  necessity  that  He  should 
inflict  this  punishment  upon  them,  or  disregard  and  war  with  the 
eternal  law,  with  all  moral  natures  containing  it,  including  His  own, 
with  all  the  moral  love  it  requires,  with  universal  ethical  justice  and 
the  total  moral  system  constituted  by  it,  and  should  thus  license  and 
favor  a  universal  riot  and  ravage  of  all  wickedness,  vices,  injustice, 
crimes,  havoc  of  all  good  and  happiness,  and  the  reign  of  the  devil 
complete  and  unopposed,  with  all  its  horrors  over  our  whole  sub- 
verted, dehumanized  race,  cursed  and  consumed  by  sin,  or  should 
provide  a  redemptive  measure,  including  an  atonement,  for  them, 
the  best  one  possible,  by  which  to  retrieve  as  many  of  them  as  pos- 
sible from  sin  and  its  deserved  punitive  retribution.  Knowing  all 
this.  He  devised  and  connected  the  plan  of  that  measure  along  with 
that  of  their  creation,  and  that  of  the  creation  of  the  earth  and  the 
universe — not  as  part  of  His  moral  government  over  them  which  is 
founded  in  their  moral  nature  and  His  own,  but  as  a  measure  of 
mercy  and  grace  to  recover  as  many  of  them  as  it  would  be  morally 
possible  to  recover  from  their  foreseen'sin  and  all  its  ruinous  conse- 
quences, natural,  social,  and  retributive.  As  previously  shown,  this 
measure  would  be  a  provision  designedly  adapted  for  them  all  alike, 
but,  as  moral  beings  naturally  possess  the  power  of  free  choice  in 
view  of  motives,  it  could  avail  for  those  only  who  could  be  morally 
brought  to  comply  with  its  conditions — that  is,  to  turn  from  sin  and 
Satan  to  God  by  faith  and  obedience,  for  "without  faith,  it  is  im- 
possible to  please  Him."  We  overlooked  one  radical  point,  when 
stating  reasons  a  short  distance  back  why  God  did  not  cut  off  the 
first  human  pair  when  they  sinned  and  create  another  in  their  stead, 
which  we  introduce  here.  It  is,  that,  according  to  His  all-wise  plan. 
He  created  all  spiritual  natures,  not  only  rational,  moral  beings, 
but  immortal,  v/hich  is  intrinsically  included  in  the  meaning  of  the 
words  respecting  the  creation  of  man,  that  "He  created  man  in  His 
own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  He  him:  male  and  female 
created  He  them,"     As  His  nature  is  immortal,  so  must  theirs  be; 


m FINITE  obligation:  309 

and,  as  the  priiicipict  of  their  posterity  were  all,  accordin.oj  to  that 
plan,  included  in  them,  to  cut  them  off  would  have  been  to  give  it 
up,  as  it  respected  them  and  their  race,  as  not  wise  nor  good.  That 
He  created  all  spiritual  natures  immortal  is  evinced  by  the  fact  that 
He  did  not  cut  off  the  angels  that  sinned;  and  so  the  notion  of  the 
annihilation  of  the  incorrigibly  wicked  of  mankind  is  against  all  the 
evidence  of  the  case.*  If  He  had  cut  them  off,  what  vast  evil, 
according  to  ignorant  human  judgment,  would  have  been  prevented! 
But  His  ways  are  not  as  ours,  nor  His  thoughts  and  plans. 

§  176.    WHY  AN  INFINITE  OBLIGATION  ON  HIM  TO  DO  ALL  MORALLY 
POSSIBLE  TO  SAVE  HUMAN  SINNERS. 

We  have  shown  in  a  previous  place  that  the  sin  and  guilt  of  the 
first  pair  were  not  absolute,  but  greatly   modified.     They  were  in 
great  ignorance  of  what  sin,  as  disobedience  to  God,  involved,  and 
without  any  experience  or  knowledge  by  information  or  example  of 
its  dire  consequences,   signified  by  the   threatened  death  it  would 
incur.     Eve  was   much    the   most  susceptible  to   the    influence  of 
temptation.     Satan,  vastly  superior  in  mind,  and  thoroughly  prac- 
ticed in  craft  and  lies,  chose  her  when  alone  to  experiment  upon. 
Scripture  tells  how  he  did  it  and   succeeded  in  leading  her  to  sin, 
and  how  she  next  led   Adam  to  do  the  same.     Plainly  they  were 
both  guilty  and  objects  of  pity.     They  had  disobeyed  and  "  brought 
death  into  the  world,  and  all  our  woe,"  but  they  were  duped,  and 
knew  but  little  of  what  they  did.     In  some  respects  the  case  of  their 
posterity  during  the  earlier  portion  of  their  life  is  even  worse.    They 
enter  the  world  inheriting  damaged  natures  and  tendencies,  by  which 
their  heart-will  is  biased  to  choose  sinfully.     With    appetites   and 
desires   for    gratifications    intensely    urgent;    with    susceptibilities 
promptly  quick  to  be  affected  by  the  perception,  knowledge,  or  im- 
agination of  objects  or  conditions  adapted  to  excite  them  to  urgent 
desires;  with  reason,  conscience,  and  judgment  at  first  undeveloped, 
like  germs  in  new-planted  seeds,  and,  after  their  development  begins, 
imbecile  as  helpless  infancy  just  born,  and  acquiring  strength  even 
more  slowly  than  the  infant  does;  with  no  experience  of  the  ten- 
dencies and  consequences  of  moral  action,  nor  knowledge  of  it  as 
such;  with  the  influences  and  infections  of  all  the  manifestations  of 
temper,  spirit,  character,  conduct,  conversation,  treatment,  teach- 
ings, advices,  enticements,   and  all  other  modes  of  imparting  the 
complex  whole  received  from   all  others  of  all   ages,   much   of  it 

i^\  Tennvson's  In  Memoriam.  XXXIV. 


310  THE  A  TOMEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

entirely,  most  of  it  to  a  great  degree,  stimulant  to  the  natural  evil 
tendencies  of  minds  from  early  childhood  through  all  youth,  urging 
to  and  confirming  in  the  selfishness  of  their  first  moral  choice,  and, 
in  far  the  most  cases,  not  counteracted,  much  less  neutralized  or  pre- 
vented by  real  religious  and  moral  teaching,  training,  example,  and 
influence;  with  all  the  temptations  of  the  devil  superadded  to  all 
indicated;  with  all  there  is  besides  in  the  whole  heathen  world,  in 
all  its  superstitions,  misbeliefs,  pernicious  customs  and  corruptions, 
ignorance  of  God  and  holy  truth,  savageries,  barbarisms,  and  hor- 
rors of  inhumanity,  and  all  there  is  in  Christian  lands  of  atheism 
and  infidelity,  of  disregard  and  scorn  of,  and  war  against  the  Scrip- 
tural revelation  and  all  its  truth  concerning  God  and  His  law,  the 
moral  system,  and  all  His  relations  to  mankind,  and  enormities  of 
villainies,  crimes,  and  corruptions  of  all  kinds;  and  with  the  thought 
of*  what  immeasurably  worse  would  have  been  true  of  our  total 
race,  if  God  had  not  devised  the  redemptive  measure  along  with 
His  purposing  the  creation  of  our  race,  what  appalling  danger 
surrounds  them !  But,  beyond  all  this,  by  purposing  to  create 
them  moral  beings,  having  moral  reason  with  the  perfectly  just 
social  law  in  it,  and  therefore  all  interbound  in  a  universal  and 
eternal  moral  system,  with  all  its  relations  of  reciprocity,  responsi- 
bility, accountability,  demands  for  retributive  rewards  and  punish- 
ments according  to  deserts,  and  with  God  necessarily  in  the  system 
and  administering  a  moral  government  over  all.  He  made  it  abso- 
lutely obligatory  on  Himself,  as  subject  to  His  own  moral  reason  and 
conscience,  to  inflict  on  every  accountable  actor  of  them  all  the  pun- 
ishment deserved  by  him,  as  ethical  justice  to  all  holy  beings  ever 
to  exist  with  Himself  in  the  universal,  eternal  society  under  Him 
demands;  so  that  every  accountable  actor  of  the  total  race  must 
infallibly  "perish"  and  be  "lost,"  as  Christ  clearly  taught  they 
would  be,  unless  God  should  provide  the  redemptive  measure.  Such 
was  the  whole  case  before  God's  omniscient  eye  when  He  purposed 
to  create  mankind  as  He  did  according  to  His  absolutely  wisest 
and  best  possible  universal  plan;  and,  in  view  of  the  whole  case,  as 
we  can  see  it,  we  ask,  would  it  not  have  been  infinitely  wrong  for 
Him  to  create  our  race,  without  purposing  this  measure  for  it,  by 
and  through  which  to  do  all  possible  "to  repair  the  ruins  of  the 
fall,"  and  to  save  as  many  of  them  as  possible?  Could  His  doing 
so  possibly  consist  with  benevolence,  with  mercy  towards  them  as 
foreseen?  Must  He  not  have  felt  an  infinite  obligation  ufon  Him  to 
purpose,  and  in  time  to  execute  that  measure  ? 


IMMEASURABLE  GOOD.  311 

§  177.    AN  OBLIGATION  TO  RESCUE    FROM    ALL    THIS    EVIL,    AND  TO 
SECURE    IMMEASURABLE  GOOD,  AS  FAR  AS  POSSIBLE. 

To  assist  in  answering  these  questions,  let  us  consider  how  im- 
measurable by  any  finite  mind  the  good  to  be  secured  to  even  one 
sinner  is,  and  how  that  of  each  additional  one  of  all  the  countless 
hosts  who  may  be  saved  constitutes  an  aggregate  which  the  omnis- 
cience of  God  alone  can  know.  The  greatness  of  that  aggregate 
and  of  each  constituent  of  it  is  measured  by  all  the  difference  seen 
by  God  between  the  condition  of  each  of  these  immortals  in  ever- 
lasting ruin  and  woe  from  their  perpetual,  utter  depravity  and  its 
natural  consequences  added  to  those  of  their  sin  in  this  life,  from 
their  endless  exclusion  from  the  universal  holy  society  and  restric- 
tion to  the  region  inhabited  by  those  only  of  all  grades  of  reprobate 
character,  the  outlaws  of  the  universe;  and  from  the  positive  pun- 
ishment their  sins  deserve,  and  their  condition,  if  in  everlasting  per- 
fection of  being,  character,  union  with  God  and  the  universal  and 
eternal  holy  society  with  all  evil  characters  and  influences  forever 
excluded,  and  in  blessedness  and  glory  unspeakable  from  God's  all- 
gracious,  fostering,  and  consummating  hand.  We  must  also  con- 
sider, that  God  must  foreknow  that,  by  providing  a  redemptive 
measure,  including  an  atonement.  He  can  consistently  secure  this 
stupendous  good  for  at  least  a  sufficient  number  to  justify  it  as 
worthy  of  it.  Considering  also,  that  His  execution  of  this  measure 
would  involve  the  greatest  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  possible  for 
Him  and  would  be  done  for  them  from  infinite  mercy  alone,  we  are 
brought  back  to  the  same  inquiry  made  above — Could  there  be  any 
kind  of  obligation  upon  Him  to  adopt  and  execute  this  measure, 
including  the  representative  substitution  of  Christ  in  His  sufferings 
and  death  for  them,  to  meet  and  satisfy  the  demands  of  justice,  both 
as  retributive  against  them,  and  as  ethical  to  God  and  the  universal 
loyal  society,  so  as  to  permit  a  full  outflow  of  grace  towards  them, 
and  the  salvation  of  every  one  of  them  who  could  be  brought  into 
the  conditional  moral  state  for  forgiveness  ?  Could  His  knowledge 
of  the  fact  that,  on  the  one  hand.  He  could  rescue  so  many  t)f  our 
race  from  utter  loss  in  absolute  sin  and  misery,  and  correspondingly 
diminish  evil  in  the  universe;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  He  could 
not  only  restore  them  to  eternal  holiness  and  perfect  good  and 
blessedness,  but  also  to  full  union  with  the  whole  loyal,  eternal 
society  and  Himself,  and  thus  not  only  gratify  its  holy  and  benevo- 
lent heart  and  vastly  augment  its  everlasting  good,  but,  in  their 
special  relations  to  Christ,  they  would  be  of  everlasting  service  and 


312  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

blessing  to  the  increasing  universe  of  moral  beings  and  of  delight 
and  honor  to  Him,  and  that  He,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  would 
forever  receive  immeasurably  greater  pleasure  and  declarative  glory 
from  having  saved  them  than  He  could  from  having  punished  them 
all  as  they  deserve — could,  we  say.  His  knowledge  of  all  this  pos- 
sibly fail  to  impose  an  obligation  on  Him  to  adopt  and  execute  the 
great  measure  of  redemption,  including  that  of  making  the  atone- 
ment? He  is  a  moral  being;  and  His  moral  reason  containing  the 
eternal  law,  His  conscience,  and  His  sensibility  are  absolutely  per- 
fect. Whether,  then,  must  not  that  reason  have  issued  to  Himself 
an  obliging  imperative,  mandate,  or  dictate  to  exercise  and  act 
towards  our  foreseen  sinful,  guilty,  "lost"  race  the  benevolence,  not 
of  justice,  as  towards  all  holy  beings,  but  of  pure  mercy  and  grace? 
— that  is,  to  prevent  all  the  evil  and  to  do  all  the  good  possible  to 
them  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  perfect  justice,  and  with 
these  ends,  to  do  such  immeasurable  good  to  the  entire  and  eternal, 
ever-increasing  loyal  society,  and  to  Himself? 

§178.    THE    REAL   QUESTION — WHETHER   THERE    IS  AN   OBLIGATION  TO 
EXERCISE  MERCY,  WHEN  CONSISTENT  WITH  JUSTICE. 

Discerning  minds,  then,  will  perceive  that  the  question  is  pre- 
cisely this,  whether  there  is  an  obligation  or  obliging  imperative  or 
mandate  in  moral  natures  to  exercise  and  act  mercy,  when  consist- 
ent with  justice,  even  if  involving  great  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice 
for  the  achievement  of  its  end,  so  long  as  that  end  is  a  good  out- 
weighing the  evil  of  these.  We  answer  it  as  follows:  If  there  is 
not,  how  can  there  be  any  virtue,  any  worthiness  of  praise  and 
honor  in  exercising  and  acting  it,  or  in  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice, 
however  great,  in  doing  so  for  its  objects  or  end,  or  any  sin  in  not 
acting  it?  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  all  God's  love  towards  human 
sinners  must  be  pure  mercy  alone,  because  they  have  forfeited  all 
right  to  it  and  deserve  only  punishment.  That  is,  it  can  only  be  a 
love  of  their  being  and  its  good,  despite  their  sin  and  guilt;  and  is  not 
His  love  towards  them  morally  virtuous  and  deserving  of  infinite 
praise  and  honor  ?  Is  it  not  certain  that  all  love,  not  merely  in- 
stinctive, merely  natural  affection,  mere  blind  sympathy  or  senti- 
mental gush — that  is,  all  moral  love  or:  pure  good-will  from  any  being 
for  others,  is  w^;-<7/ simply  because  it  is,  in  some  sense,  compliance 
with  obligation,  that  is,  with  the  law,  being  demanded  as  its  matter 
for  its  end,  which  is  the  real  good  of  moral  beings  ?  This  only 
makes  it  moral,  and  so,  not  only  esthetically  beautiful  and  amiable, 


MERCY  AND  GRACE.  313 

as  all  kinds  of  love  are  more  or  less  in  some  of  their  aspects,  but 
morally  praise-worthy  and  deserving;  and  does  not  the  whole  world 
know,  nature-taught,  that  mercy  and  all  the  self-denial  and  self- 
sacrifice  it  involves  for  its  objects  are  moral,  virl nous,  praise-worthy? 
— that  to  refuse  to  act  them,  when  consistent  with  justice,  is  some- 
how a  violation  of  obligation,  wrong,  immoral,  sin,  often  cruel, 
sometimes  crime? — and  that,  the  more  impossible  it  is  that  there 
can  be  any  obligation  of  justice  to  its  objects,  the  more  morally 
sublime,  illustrious,  and  praise-worthy  the  exercise  of  it  towards 
them  is,  if  consistent  with  justice  ?  This  obligation  to  love  moral 
natures  an. I,  as  far  as  practicable,  to  promote  their  good  for  the  sake 
of  what  it  is  to  them,  whether  they  deserve  such  action  towards  them> 
or  not — tltat  is,  solely  because  they  are  moral  beings,  has  always  been 
affirmed  or  assumed  among  men  though  so  much  disregarded  or  so 
defectively  complied  with.  If  men,  so  perverted  and  dulled  by  sin, 
have  it  affirmed  in  them,  can  it  be  thought  that  God,  the  all-perfect 
Archetype  of  them  all,  having  created  them  in  His  own  image,  who 
is  infinite  in  goodness  and  perfection,  does  not  have  it  affirmed  in 
Him,  and  absolutely  binding  upon  Him?  Besides,  could  He,  as 
we  maintain  He  did,  adopt  and  execute  in  its  time  the  redemptive 
measure  in  and  through  Christ  and  His  really  vicarious  atonement 
for  the  sins  of  mankind  without  an  obligation  upon  Him  to  do  it, 
He  perfectly  knowing  all  it  would  cost  Him  to  do  it,  and  that  His 
doing  it  would  be  His  supreme  W(?ra/  action  in  the  universe?  If 
He  had  not  done  it,  would  He  have  violated  His  conscience? 
Would  He  have  stood  before  His  own  eyes  as  the  absolutely  good 
and  holy  being  which  doing  it  would  demonstrate  Him  to  be,  or  not 
self-condemned  as  lacking  benevolence  and  unworthy  of  His  own 
approval  and  of  the  eternal  approval  and  plaudits  of  the  intelligent 
universe?  No;  we  believe  the  position  certainly  true,  that  He  was 
under  an  obligation,  which  no  finite  thought  can  measure,  imposed 
by  the  imperative  or  mandate  of  His  own  moral  reason  or  nature 
to  adopt  and  execute  the  whole  redemptive  system,  including  the 
making  of  the  atonement,  if  He  created  mankind. 

§  179.    SUCH    AN    OBLIGATION    DETRACTS    NOTHING    FROM    MERCY    AND 

GRACE,  ETC. 

This  position  involves  no  slightest  depreciation  of  the  mercy 
and  grace,  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  of  God  in  devising  and  exe- 
cuting the  great  measure  of  redemption,  its  vicarious  atonement, 
and  all   else  included  in  it.     It  does  not,  because  the  obligation 


314  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

impelling  Him  was,  in  no  sense  one  of  justice  to  them,  or  to  any 
other  beings,  but  was  simply  one  to  act  the  benevolence  of  mercy 
in  willing  and  promoting,  as  far  as  that  of  justice  would  permit,  and 
as  far  as  would  be  possible,  the  good  of  human  sinners  purely  for 
the  sake  of  what  it  would  be  to  them,  and,  doubtless,  for  the  sake 
of  the  good  which  He  knew  would  result  from   His  doing  it,  and 
from  the  good  which  it  would  secure  to  the  universal  loyal  society 
and  Himself  in  it  forever.     This  is  really  only  saying  in  effect  that 
this  obligation  upon  Him  from  His  own  moral  reason  or  nature  was 
to  act  perfect  benevolence  to  them  in  that  way  and  along  with  them 
to  all  holy  moral  beings — that  is,  to  do  the  greatest  good  poss'ible  to 
them  in  their  condition  and  along  with  them  to  the  total  intelligent 
universe.     The  fact,   therefore,  of  this   obligation  on  Him   demon- 
strates absolutely  that  it  is  only  by  mercy  and  grace  that  any  sinner 
of  our  race  can  be  saved.     Nor  can   any  of  them   with  a  particle 
more  of  consistency  or  reason  claim,  as  his  right  and  due,  any  favor 
from   God  on  account  of  this   obligation   upon   Him,   than  if  there 
was  none;  and,  if  any  of  them  receives  it  from  Him,  not  a  particle 
the  less  must  he  ascribe  it  to  His  mercy  and  grace  alone.     His  com- 
pliance with  this  obligation,  sphered  in  Himself,  is  simply  one  way 
of  acting  out  His  goodness,  which  is  certainly  moral  or  righteous, 
absolute  conformity  to  His  eternal  moral  nature,  or  the  law  in  and 
from   it;  and  is  it  any  detraction  from    His   goodness,  to  say  that 
both  it  and   His  adoption   and   execution  of  the  whole  redemptive 
measure  for  the  stupendous  end  stated  were   done  in  compliance 
with  an  obligation  imposed  by  the  law  in  His  nature?     Must  He 
have  no  law  in  it,  and  act  by  none,  in  order  to  be  good,  and  to  be 
merciful  ?     In  fact,  the  whole  question  before  us  is  rooted  in  this, 
whether   His  goodness  is  His  most  free,  eternal  conformity  to  the 
moral  law  in  and  from   His  nature,  or  to  nothing,  and  consists  in. 
mere  arbitrary  willing  without  any  obliging  standard,  which,  there- 
fore, could  be  neither  right  nor  wrong,  and  be  exactly  contrary  to 
all  we  necessarily  deem  right.     If  it  consists  in  this,   how  could  it 
have  moral  character,  righteousness,  praise-worthiness  in  it  ?     The 
question,  why  He  is,  in  any  moral  sense,  what  we  call  good  couid 
never  find  an  answer.     Any  will,  which  there  is  no  law  to  direct  or 
bind,  must  necessarily  be  purely  arbitrary  in  all  its  action,  and  can- 
not be  moral  in  any.     Is  God's  will  such?     Is  it  such  in  His  moral 
government,  in  His  providence,  in  the  redemptive  measure,  in  His 
assertion  and  administration  of  justice,  in  His  mercy  and  grace,  in 
His  threatenings  and  promises,  in  any  of  His  action  towards  moral 


SYSTEM  OF  CHRISTIAN'  TRUTH.  S^S 

beings?  The  answer  to  all  questions  concerning  this  matter  lies  in 
this  nutshell — He  is  a  moral  being;  and,  if  so,  is  necessarily  under 
the  obligations  of  the  eternal,  immutable  moral  law  in  and  from  His 
moral  reason  in  all  His  action  towards  His  rational  creatures  to  do 
the  greatest  good  possible.  He  can  never  act  towards  nor  treat  any 
one  of  them  irrespective  of  the  obligations  of  that  purely  social  law, 
as  shown  in  our  first  Chapter  and  in  other  places. 

§  l8o.    DEPRECIATES  NOTHING,  BUT  EXALTS,  SUBLIMES,  AND   GLORIFIES 
THE  WHOLE   SYSTEM  OF  CHRISTIAN   TRUTH. 

This  position  loosens  nothing,  lowers  nothing,  depreciates  noth- 
ing, but  exalts,   sublimes,   and  glorifies  everything  in  the  system  of 
Christian  truth.     Lord   Bacon  says,  that   "when  man  seeth  the  de- 
pendence of  causes,  and  the  works  of  Providence,  then,  according 
to  the  allegory  of  the  poets,  he  will  easily  believe  that  the  highest 
link  of  nature's  chain  must  needs  be  tied  to  the  foot  of  Jui)iter's 
chair."     This  is  his  prescription  for  the  cure  of  atheism;  and  no 
less  is  it,  we  add,  of  all  the  silliness  of  agnosticism  and  mere  materi- 
alism.    It  is  saying   that  all   secondary  causes,  or  forces  with   their 
laws,  are  established  and  maintained  in  linked  dependence  on  God's 
omnipotent  will  as  the  primal  cause  and  force,  and  operate  accord- 
ing to  the  counsels  or  plans  of  His  infinite  intelligence  and  wisdom 
for  His  determined  ends  in  the  universe.     So,  when  one  contemplates 
the  whole  m  ;asure  of  redemption,  and  sees  the  stupendous  degrees 
of  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  acted  in  it  by  the  Godhead,  especially 
in  the  suff'erings  and  death  of  the  perfectly  righteous  Son,  as  the  rep- 
resentative substitute  of  our  race  of  sinners,  to  retrieve  them  from 
the  necessity  of  suff"ering  the  penalty  of  the  law  as  justice  demands; 
and  when  he  recognizes  that,  in  all  those  wonders  of  merciful  love 
for  them,   alienated  from  and  hostile  in  heart  to  God  by  their  sin. 
He  has  done  nothing  frocn  mere  arbitrary  will  or  caprice,  but  all 
according  to  His  infitiiie  wisdom,  with  perfect  adaptation  to  harmo- 
nize ethical  justice  to  all  holy  beings.  Himself  included,  with  mercy 
to  them  and  grace  to  secure  all  possible,  everlasting  good  to  them, 
and  with  them  to  the  entire  and  eternal  holy  society  and  Himself, 
he  will  easily  believe  that  they  were   His  transcendent  /?ioral  acts, 
and  that  the  highest  link  of  the  chain  they  constitute  is  tied,  not  to 
the  foot  of  His  eternal  chair,  but  to  the  staple  in  His  nature,  as  im- 
mutable as  it  is,  of  the  law's  imperative  to  exercise  mercy  and  grace 
to  them,  as  far  as  justice  permits,  though  at  such  measureless  cost 
to  Himself,  to  achieve  all  this  boundless  good.     How  vastly  more 


3l6  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

sublime  is  this  fastening  and  its  supernal  pendent  than  that  so  finely- 
expressed  by  the  illustrious  Bacon! 

§  l8l.    NO  MORAL  ACTION  SUPEREROGATORY. 

The  common  view  of  this  matter  makes  the  whole  action  of 
God  in  the  redemptive  measure  entirely  supererogatory,  because 
done  without  any  kind  of  obligation;  and  it  is  only  a  logical  exten- 
sion of  the  principle  assumed,  to  say  that  all  action  of  mercy  by 
both  God  and  men  is  supererogatory.  If  the  obligation  of  justice 
is  the  only  one,  then  all  such  action  by  Him  or  them  must  be  such. 
But,  if  what  we  have  shown  is  valid,  it  is  a  demonstration  that  such 
action  could  not  possibly  be  moral,  whether  done  by  God  or  any 
other  moral  being,  and  that  the  assertion,  or  even  the  conception  of 
it  is  instrinsically  absurd,  and  as  mischievous  as  it  is  absurd.  That 
both  God  and  man  can  do  actions  not  demanded  by  justice  or  its 
obligation  is,  we  think,  incontestable;  but  that  either  of  them  can 
do  any  moral  action,  to  do  which  no  kind  of  obligation  binds,  is,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  impossible.  Thus  our  position  sweeps  utterly 
away  the  whole  delusion  of  a  vast  store  of  supererogatory  merits  of 
saints  in  reserve  for  supplying  the  deficiences  of  living  sinners,  and 
every  kindred  notion.  No  saint  ever  lived  that  had  any  such  merits. 
There  can  be  no  moral  action  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  which  is  not 
required  by,  and  obedience  to,  the  law  in  moral  natures,  either  un- 
modified or  modified  in  the  way  we  have  shown. 

Conclusion  of  the  preceding  Parts. 

§  182.    SOME  REASONS  FOR  WRITING   THE    PHILOSOPHICAL  OR  PSYOLOG- 
ICAL  PARTS  OF  THIS  WORK. 

We  have  evolved  our  positions  in  the  preceding  Parts  of  this 
Work  respecting  the  law,  conscience,  retributions,  and  some  involved 
points  from  data  in  consciousness,  and  those  respecting  other  points 
mainly  from  Scripture.  We  believe  the  former,  as  well  as  the  latter, 
valid  against  all  the  objections  urged  against  a  positive  moral  gov- 
ernment, positive  retributions,  substitutional  atonement,  and  all  the 
essential  doctrines  of  Christianity  involved  in  these.  We  had  two 
reasons  for  adopting  this  method — one,  that  the  principal  recent 
attempts  to  subvert  these  fundamental  doctrines  have  been  made  on 
an  assumed  philosophical  basis,  and  should  be  met  on  the  same; 
the  other  that  we  rejoiced  in  the  opportunity  thus  presented  to  show 
that  philosophy  is  not  against,  but  on  the  side  of,  Christianity,  even 
in  its  peculiar  facts   and   doctrines,  and  really  demands  it  as  its 


SySTEAr  OF  CHRTSTIAl^  TRUTH.  317 

logical  supplement;  so  that,  whoever  denies  Christianity  as  a  whole, 
or  any  of  its  essential  parts,  must  assume  positions  at  war  with  facts 
and  truths  of  sound  moral  philosophy,  from  some  of  which  the  only 
logical  road  leads  to  the  gulf  of  atheism,  or,  which  is  substantially 
the  same,  of  pantheism.  The  grand  characteristic  of  Christianity 
is,  that  is  grounded  on,  embodies,  and  unfolds  the  social  character 
of  the  law  in  and  from  all  moral  natures,  and  thus  the  social-moral 
character  of  all  such  natures.  It  does  this  in  the  mode  made  neces- 
sary by  the  fact  and  peculiarity  of  the  sin  of  mankind;  and  the 
peculiarity  of  their  sin  springs  from  that  of  their  nature,  which 
determines  their  correlation  to  each  other,  to  God,  and  to  all  other 
moral  beings.  It  sets  forth  the  acting  out,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the 
absolutely  just  good-will  oi  God  towards  Himself  and  the  universal 
holy  society,  and,  on  the  other,  of  His  mercy,  the  only  remnant  of 
good-will  possible  towards  sinners,  in  such  manner  and  measure 
towards  mankind  as  must  forever  be  the  abiding  amazement  of  all 
intelligent  beings.  Hence,  to  deny  any  of  its  essential  parts  is  cor- 
respondingly to  deny  the  social-moral  character  of  the  law  and  of 
moral  natures,  and  logically  requires  a  denial  of  that  character  of 
both;  and  this  involves  the  assumption,  that  the  design  of  God  in 
constituting  rational  creatures  is  realized  in  pure  individualism  and 
self-centering  action;  for  there  could  really  be  no  such  thing  as 
selfishness  in  them,  any  more  than  in  the  irrational  animals.  The 
social-moral  nature  of  God  and  of  His  rational  creatures  is  mani- 
fested and  demonstrated  in  Christianity  in  all  His  own  action  and 
suffering,  and  in  all  the  relations  of  mankind  to  each  other,  to  other 
intelligent  creatures,  and  to  Himself;  and  it  is  asserted  in  the 
inspired  revelation  as  the  radical  reason  for  His  entire  redemptive 
system.  Nor  is  there  another  manifestation  or  demonstration  of 
this  transcendent  fact  in  all  the  ways  of  God  and  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  rational  universe,  which  compares  with  these,  more  than  the 
light  of  the  moon  and  stars  does  with  that  of  the  meridian  sun,  shin- 
ing in  his  strength.  The  love  of  God  for  man,  and  that  between 
man  and  man,  and  between  men  and  all  good  beings,  which  fulfills 
the  requirement  and  ideal  of  the  Christian  revelation,  are  simply  the 
outflow  and  exhibition  of  the  strength  of  the  interbinding  social- 
moral  ties  of  their  natures;  and  it  is  precisely  this  nature  and  the 
effect  of  sin  upon  it  in  man,  and  resultantly  in  God  and  all  good 
beings,  which  made  the  redemptive  system  a  moral  necessity,  and 
at  the  same  time  the  unapproached  and  unapproachable  demon- 
stratioa  of  it  and  its  intrinsic  value.     Deny  Christianity,  therefore. 


3i8  TIJE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

and  it  fades  away  into  comparative  insignificance,  as  the  effulgence 
of  brighest  sun-glory  into  the  dim,  glimmering  light  of  moon  and 
stars  1 

§  183.    CHRISTIANITY  AND  SKEPTICISM  CONTRASTED.      THE  LATTER 
ONLY  DESTRUCTIVE. 

Christianity  has,  therefore,  no  apologies  to  make  for  its  exist- 
ence, its  nature,  or  any  of  its  facts  or  features;  no  reason  to  hide, 
or  repudiate    anything  in   or  belonging   to   itself,    as   unseemly   or 
unsanctioned  by  reason;  no  indulgence  to  crave  before  any  tribunal 
of  philosophy  or  intellect,  more  than  it  had  when  Paul  preached  it 
before  the  Areopagus  in  Athens  or  than  reason  lias.     For,  while  it 
is  the  deepest,  truest,  grandest,  most  sublime  philosophy  on  earth 
or  in  heaven,  the  philosophy  of  God  brought  down  from  heaven  in 
a  real  sense  never  dreamt  of  by  Socrates  or  Plato,  all  objections  to 
it,  or  to  any  essential  element  of  it,  are  demonstrably  derogatory  to 
the  moral  nature  of  God  and  of  all  His  rational  creatures,  to  His 
character  as  infinitely  good,  and  to  all  that  is  great,  grand,  and  holy 
in  the  end  of  creation;  and  they  essentially  tend  to  all  denial,  and 
thus  to  atheism  as  their  ultimate  terminus.     Skepticism,  therefore, 
is  no  evidence  of  superiority  of  mind,  of  independence  of  thought 
or  investigation,  of  finer  natural  sensibility,   of  any  worthy  quality 
whatever,  but  is,  in  itself,  a  just  reproach  to  all  who  become  inmeshed 
in  its  superficialities.     It  belongs  to  the  destructive,  not  to  the  con- 
structive type  of  mind;  to  the  lower,  not  to  the  higher  order;  to  one 
which  requires  for  the  performance  of  its  kind  of  work  far  less 
reason,  insight,  talents,  and  substantial  attainment,  than  are  requisite 
for  seeing  and  grasping  in  thought  all  that  essentially  pertains  to  a 
great  moral  system,  the  vital  relations  of  its  facts,  principles,  and 
parts,  its  adaptations  and  tendencies,  its  intrinsic  importance,  and 
its  sure  results.     The  destructive  may  glow  with  luxuriant  rhetoric; 
the  constructive  must  elaborate  the  intrinsic  reasons  and  logical  con- 
nections  and    dependences   of    all    involved   in    the   whole.      The 
destructive  may  resort  to  all  uses  and  tricks  of  wit,  persiflage  and 
ridicule  in  attacking  some  misconceived  or  misrepresented  feature 
of  even  the  grandest  whole,  to  its   temporary  disparagement;  the 
constructive  must,  like  all  builders,  do  serious,  earnest,  systematic, 
substantial  work,   and  can  only  use  like  weapons  to  those  of  the 
destructive,  if  at  all,  in  repelling  and  refuting  his  attacks,  and  then 
with  becoming  restraint.     The  destructive,  as  such,   never  achieves 
anything  great  or  permanent;  the  constructive  often  leaves  magnifi- 


OBLIGA  TION  ON  GOD.  319 

cent  monuments  behind  him,  more  lasting  than  marble,  and  august 
with  perennial  beneficence  to  mankind.  Skepticisms  and  skeptics 
spring  up  and  flourish  for  a  day,  and  then  perish,  like  Jonah's  gourd; 
Christianity  and  its  loyal  advocates  and  unfolders  go  steadily  on  in 
their  Divine  mission,  achieving  their  matchless  results  and  ends 
among  men,  unresting  as  the  sun,  with  perpetual  augmentation  of 
good  to  man  and  glory  to  God,  and  with  the  sure  destiny  to  bring 
the  whole  world  yet  under  their  benignant  sway.  Nor  has  anything 
ever  been  gained  for  Christianity,  nor  will  there  ever  be,  by  repress- 
ing, eliminating,  subtracting  from,  or  substituting  something  else  for, 
any  of  its  constellated  facts  or  truths  to  suit  skepticism.  "  The 
foolishness  of  God  is  wiser  than  men;  and  the  weakness  of  God  is 
stronger  than  men;"  and  Christianity  can  only  prosper  by  being  set 
forth  as  it  is,  unclouded,  and  with  all  its  supernal  lights  complete. 

§  184.    WHAT  FOLLOWS,  IF^WE  HAVE  PROVED  AN  OBLIGATION  ON  GOD  TO 
MAKE  AN  ATONEMENT. 

If  we  have  proved,  as  we  believe  we  have,  that  there  was  an 
obligation  in  God  upon  Himself,  in  the  sense  of  an  obliging  imper- 
ative or  mandate  from  His  own  infinite  reason  or  nature,  to  exercise 
mercy  towards  guilty  men,  by  substituting  His  own  suffering  in 
Christ  for  that  due  by  justice  to  Himself  and  all  holy  beings  from 
them,  then  we  have  demonstrated  that  a  real  vicarious  atonement  is 
the  only  moral  one,  the  only  one  at  all.  We  have  thus  turned  the 
positions  of  all  who  object  to  it,  either  as  arbitrary,  having  no 
ground  in  morality,  as  the  advocates  of  the  so-called  inoral  atone- 
ment and  others  do;  or  as  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  benevolent 
and  righteous  character  of  God,  and  revolting  to  the  moral  sense  by 
representing  Him  as  so  inexorable,  (some  say,  even  cruel  and  blood- 
thirsty,) that  He  must  have  blood  to  render  Him  placable,  as  infidels, 
generally,  and  some  professed  Christians,  ignorantly  and  persistently 
say.  This  last  objection,  always  shameful  to  its  utterers,  because 
always  either  a  willful,  or  a  grossly  ignorant  misrepresentation  of  the 
doctrine  of  atonement  as  held  by  any  class,  has  been,  thousands  of 
times,  scattered  to  the  winds  from  the  ordinary  grounds  of  explain- 
ing the  great  fact.  But  what  becomes  of  it,  or  of  any  other,  if  we 
have  established  our  position?  They  are  utterly  extinguished;  and 
nothing  could  prove  greater  disregard  or  ignorance  of  what  we  have 
set  forth,  than  the  utterance  of  either  of  them  against  it.  But,  if 
one  should  really  undertake  to  overthrow  it,  he  must  first  overthrow 
our  whole  exposition  of  the  law  and  its  justice  as  in  and  from  moral 


320  THE  ATONEMENT  OF  CHRIST. 

nature,  and  supremely  in  and  from  God's,  and  then  show  that  sin 
creates  no  necessity  for  retributive  penal  suffering  by  its  actors,  as 
due  to  God  and  all  good  beings  instead  of  the  love  and  its  conse- 
quent good,  of  which  they  have  robbed  Him  and  them.  Then  he 
must  show  that,  if  God  sees  it  to  be  consistent  with  justice  and  the 
law,  as  we  have  explained,  for  Him  to  exercise  mercy  towards  them 
by  and  through  the  sufferings  of  Christ  in  their  stead,  and  that  He 
can  thus  save  vast  suffering  in  the  universe  and  secure  immeasur- 
ably greater  good  in  it  than  would  result  from  inflicting  the  deserved 
penalty  upon  them,  He  is  nevertheless  under  no  kind  of  obligation 
to  do  it,  even  for  so  stupendous  an  end;  and  consequently  that,  if 
He  did  do  it,  though  with  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  beyond  finite 
comprehension,  it  would  not  be  virtue,  nor  moral  action  at  all,  and 
therefore  not  morally  praise-worthy! — that  it  would  be  action  without 
any  moral  motive  or  intent!  Whoever  cannot  show  all  these  and 
more  is  bound  to  believe  in  a  truly  vicarious  atonement!  Hie  labor, 
hoc  opus  est. 

§  185.    THE   BANE   OF  THEOLOGY 

The  bane.of  all  theology  and  religion,  and  no  less  of  all  oppo- 
sition to  both  as  they  really  are,  is  the  wild  imagination  that  God 
does  all  things  by  mere  arbitrary  will.  Men  argue,  that,  because 
He  is  Almighty  and  nothing  can  withstand  His  will,  He  is  under  or 
controlled  by  no  law,  no  constitution,  no  obligation  of  any  kind  in 
His  action,  but  can  do  whatever  He  pleases  in  an  utterly  lawless 
liberty.  It  is  true  that  He  can  and  does  do  whatever  He  pleases, 
and  that  none  can  hinder  Him;  but  the  important  omitted  truth  is, 
that  He  only  pleases  to  do  as  the  uncreated,  unchangeable,  ever- 
lasting law  with  its  included  justice  in  His  own  eternal  nature 
requires;  and  His  pleasing  to  do  thus  is  precisely  what  renders  Him, 
in  all  His  doings,  absolutely  righteous  and  good.  If  there  were  no 
such  law  with  its  justice,  and  no  obliging  imperative  or  mandate  in 
His  nature,  requiring  Him  to  act  as  He  does,  how  could  He  be  right- 
eous, or  Just,  or  holy,  or  merciful,  or  good,  or  praise-worthy,  or  a  moral 
being,  or  anything  but  either  a  characterless pantheos,  or  a  mere  infinite^ 
Epicurean,  soft-natured  being,  having  no  moral  reason,  no  regard  for 
any  distinction  between  good  or  evil  action,  or  for  the  happiness 
produced  by  the  former,  or  the  misery  by  the  latter,  and  no  moral 
government  over  His  rational  creatures  ?  All  His  special  acts  and 
measures  towards  His  intelligent  creatures,  whether  of  government 
or  of  grace,  are  and  must  be  positive  in  distinction  from  natural; 


THE  BANE  OF  rnEOLOGY.  %i.\ 

but  not  one  of  them  is  arbitrary  or  capricious,  not  one  of  them  by 
counsel  or  in  a  liberty  in  the  least  degree  devious  from,  or  in  conflict 
with,  His  eternal  nature  and  the  law  with  its  justice  in  it.  He  ever- 
lastingly abides  by  this,  and  will  not,  cannot  depart  from,  or  violate 
it  for  any  cause  or  end  possible;  so  that  He  does  nothing  merely 
because  He  is  omnipotent  and  can  do  as  He  will  in  any  arbitrary 
sense,  but  everything  because  the  law  with  its  justice,  matter,  and 
end  in  Him  and  in  all  His  rational  creatures  requires  Him  to  do  it. 
"Will  not  the  judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right?"  No  halfway  house 
exists,  or  can  be  built  to  stand  on  any  solid  foundation,  between 
that  whose  builder  and  maker  is  God,  which  stands  displayed  in  the 
perpetual  light  of  the  whole  moral  nature  of  man  and  of  the  inspired 
revelation  of  Scripture,  in  its  peerless  and  changeless  grandeur  and 
magnificent  glory,  and  the  dismal  desolations  of  atheism  and  all 
infidelity,  which  are  worse  than  even  those  of  old  Babylon  prophet- 
ically depicted  by  Isaiah.*  For  all  other  structures,  houses  or 
hovels,  built  by  men,  when  essential  parts  of  the  Divine  one  are 
rejected  from  them,  are  on  the  sliding  trend  of  negation  and  assump- 
tion which  ends  in  the  fatal  gulf  of  atheism,  and  are  of  construction 
and  material  prone  to  wreck  of  themselves.  The  false  in  them  has 
no  cohesion  with  what  in  them  may  be  true,  dissociates  frorn  and 
leaves  it;  and  their  wrecks  strew  the  world.  Man's  moral  reason 
and  God's  revelation  alike  repudiate  them,  as  destructive  of  all  the 
endless  interes'ts,  concerns,  and  hopes  of  man,  and  all  the  rights, 
dues,  interests,  concerns,  justice,  mercy,  and  character  of  God. 
Intelligent  moral  reason  screams,  Avaunt,  to  them  all  with  utmost 
abhorrence. 


(*}  (Jliap.  13:19-22. 


PART  IV. 


SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS   RESPECTING  THE   RELATIONS  OF 
CHRIST  AND  HIS  ATONEMENT  TO  MANKIND. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Relation  of  Adapt  and  of  his  sin  atid  its  personal  effects  to  his 
race,  and  examinatio?i  of  Rom.  ^:J2-ig  aiid  of  8:i8-2j  in  cotmection 
with  Gen.  2:iy  and J:l6-ig. 

§  1 86.    NATURAL   CONSEQUENCES  OF  ADAM'S   SIN  CONVEYED  TO  HIS 
POSTERITY  BY  PROPAGATION. 

We  said  in  a  preceding  place  that,  if  Adam  had  obeyed  in  his 
legal  trial-action,  not  only  would  he  have  preserved  the  integrity  of 
his  own  personal  nature  unimpaired,  but  that  of  his  entire  posterity, 
so  that,  when  they  came  to  live  and  act,  they  all  consequently  would 
also  have  obeyed  under  the  secured  conserving  favor  of  God.  The 
natural  consequences  in  him  of  his  obedience  would  have  passed  on 
into  them.  We  discard  in  this  matter  everything  not  resulting  from 
the  nature  and  relations  of  man  and  the  eternal  righteousness  of 
God — everything  fictitious,  arbitrary,  or  of  mere  caprice.  We  do 
not  accept  the  theory  of  Creatio?iism — that  is,  that  God  directly  cre- 
ates every  soul  for  every  new  body  propagated.  We  think  it  con- 
tradicts the  true  view  of  the  race-constitution  and  of  the  natural 
and  representative  headship  of  Adam  over  his  posterity.  As,  accord- 
ing to  it,  bodies  only  are  propagated,  it  denies,  in  effect,  that  "  the 
image  of  God,"  which  belongs  to  the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  passed 
from  Adam  to  his  posterity,  and  so  the  unity  of  "the  higher  species, 
the  one  spiritual  humanity  in  all  men."  It  does  this  in  opposition 
to  the  obvious  meaning  of  Gen.  1:27,  28;  5:1,  4;  9:6;  Acts  17:29; 
James  3:9;  and,  in  fact,  to  the  whole  teaching  of  Scripture  involving 


ADAM'S  Sm.  %z% 

this  mnLtcr.  It  lacks  congniity,  that,  while  God  created  Adam  a 
being  of  body  and  soul  combined  into  one,  and  enjoined  propaga- 
tion upon  him  as  such,  he  and  all  parents  of  his  descendants  should 
procreate  bodies  only,  and  God  should  directly  create  a  soul  to 
occupy  each  of  these  bodies  in  the  same  vital  combination  with  it. 
There  is  no  moral  nature  nor  character  in  bodies,  and  consequently 
this  notion  logically  denies  the  transmission  of  a  vitiated  nature  from 
Adam,  and  ascribes  it  directly  to  God,  as  either  creating  souls  viti- 
ated, or  as  somehow  causing  their  vitiation  by  uniting  them  to 
bodies,  which  is  or  borders  on  an  old  heresy,  that  all  corruption  in 
souls  comes  from  their  connection  with  matter.  Thus,  on  the  one 
alternative,  it  makes  God  the  direct  author  of  their  vitiation  and  sin, 
and,  on  the  other,  it  subverts  the  true  basis  of  morality  and  account- 
ability, and  even  moral  nature  itself.  Then,  it  is  inconsistent  with 
the  inheritance  by  children  of  mental  and  moral  traits,  character- 
istics, and  tendencies,  not  only  from  immediate  parents,  but  from 
ancestors  of  even  many  generations  past.  It  is  especially  so  with 
the  inheritance  from  Adam  of  the  common  perversion,  vitiation,  or 
depravation  of  mankind,  which  is  seated  in  their  souls  or  spiritual 
part.  Besides,  not  a  solitary  passage  in  the  Bible  teaches,  or  even 
implies  it.  Against  it,  we  hold  Traducianism,  properly  guarded,  to 
be  the  truth — that  is,  that  bodies  and  souls,  as  united  in  each  human 
person,  are  propagated  alike  in  their  natural  union  by  parents,  and 
that  thus  only  is  there  a  human  i-ace  and  species.  We  believe  this  is 
taught  by  necessary  implication  in  the  meaning  of  every  passage  of 
Scripture,  to  which  we  have  referred  above,  and  besides,  especially 
in  Rom.  5:12-19.  Our  meaning  is  not  that  propagation  is  effected 
by  mere  natural  laws  or  forces  operating  independently  of  God;  for 
we  deny  that  there  are  any  such  laws  or  forces  in  any  department 
of  nature.  Despite  all  opposing  assumptions,  we  hold  that  all  matter 
is,  in  itself,  totally  inert,  having  no  forces  nor  laws  in  it;  that  the 
forces  which  abidingly  operate  upon  it  in  every  condition  are  all 
force-essences  distinct  from  it;  that  all  natural  laws,  instead  of  being 
laws  of  matter,  are  laws  or  qualities  of  these  force-essences  only; 
that  these  are  mediums  or  instruments  of  God  for  producing  all  com- 
binations and  conditions  of  matter  not  directly  caused  by  His  will; 
and  that  all  and  singular  they  are  never  loose  from,  but  are  ever  held 
fast  and  wielded  by  His  omnipotent  hands.  But  not  all  nor  any 
number  of  these  forces  with  their  laws,  being  utterly  void  of  life  and 
mind,  could  ever  originate  either,  or  any  living  organism,  vegetable, 
or  animal.     These  were  all  originated  by  direct  creation.     Each  of 


324  SCRIPTURAL  TEACIUNGS  OiV  THE  ATONEMENT. 

them  is  distinct  from  both  the  others,  but  they  are  coinbined  essen- 
tial parts  in  the  constitution  of  every  living  creature,  so  that  it  can- 
not exist  without  them  all.  Life  is  the  same  in  all  such  creatures, 
but  they  are  divided  into  distinct  species  by  abiding  peculiarities  of 
organisms  and  minds,  as  each  species  is,  by  the  same,  into  the  two 
sexes;  so  that  the  race-constitution  for  propagation  characterizes 
them  all.  But,  because  the  constitution  of  every  living  creature  em- 
braces what  we  have  stated,  the  fundamental  rule  of  propagation  is. 
that  the  constitution  of  every  offspring  must  embrace  the  same, 
cannot  exist  without  them.  It  is  without  any  evidence  and  against 
all  knowledge  of  the  case,  to  suppose  a  single  mind  of  any  creature 
inferior  to  man  has  ever  been  created  apart  from  its  organism,  and 
then  added  to  it;  and  just  as  much  that  a  single  human  mind  has 
ever  been  so  created.  God  created  man,  as  He  did  all  inferior 
species,  with  a  race-constitution,  that  there  should  be  a  human 
species  by  propagation,  not  independent  of,  but  under  His  own  un- 
ceasing efficiency  exerted  according  to  His  determinate  plan  of  cre- 
ation. Without  this  efficiency  there  could  be  no  human,  nor  inferior 
offspring,  as  there  could  be  no  vegetable  productions  from  seeds. 
But  He  exerts  it  uniformly  according  to  that  plan,  and  not  outside 
of  it.  As  to  the  objections,  that  this  view  involves  the  divisibility, 
and  thus  the  materiality,  of  human  souls  or  minds,  we  hold  them 
entirely  invalid.  For,  (i)  who  knows  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  the 
nature  of  spirit,  as  combined  with  vital  organisms,  having  the  race- 
constitution,  that,  in  procreation,  human  parents  should  not  convey 
the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  material  constituent,  the  mind  as  well  as 
the  body,  of  a  new  constitution  like  their  own,  as  all  the  inferior 
creatures  convey  their  kinds  of  minds  as  well  as  of  bodies  ?  Who 
knows  that  God  could  not  impart  to  the  race-constitution  of  man, 
as  well  as  to  that  of  all  inferior  species,  the  capability  of  such  con- 
veyance? Or,  that  imparting  it  may  not  be  the  chief  display  of  His 
wisdom  and  power  in  creating  and  perpetuating  our  race?  Such  a 
capability  certainly  is  not  of  such  a  divisibilily  as  belongs  to  matter. 
It  in  no  way  implies  that  minds  or  souls  can  be  cut,  torn,  crushed, 
or  disintegrated  into  pieces  or  parts  by  any  application  of  force,  or 
that  they  can  ever  cease  to  be  the  identical  spiritual,  personal 
essences  or  entities  they  are  at  their  origin.  Corporeal  conveyance 
implies  material  divisibility;  spiritual  implies  nothing  of  the  kind, 
but  simply  the  issuance  of  another  spirit  like  itself  without  at  all 
diminishing  or  impairing  its  own  identical  nature  or  essence,  which 
is  absolutely  impossible  to  be  true  of  matter.     The  minds  of  human 


ADAM'S  S/AT.  325 

and  of  all  inferior  parents  are  alike  entirely  the  same  after  as  before 
procreation.  (2)  Instead,  therefore,  of  the  doctrine  that  souls  or 
minds  are  propagated  as  well  as  bodies  implying  or  tending  to 
materialism,  it  does  neither,  but  rather  the  contrary.  As  it  does  not 
involve  the  divisibility  of  souls  in  any  material  sense,  but  a  capa- 
bility, Divinely  constituted,  of  the  issuance  of  others  without  the 
least  detriment  to  or  impairment  of  their  identical  integrity,  which 
is  utterly  unlike  the  divisibility  of  matter  and  impossible  to  be  true 
of  it,  it  demonstrates  that  human  souls  are  intrinsically  different 
from  matter,  purely  spiritual.  It  adds  force  to  the  proof  of  the 
essential  difference  between  matter  and  spirit,  souls  and  bodies, 
furnished  by  the  total  dissimilarity  of  the  phenomena  of  souls  from 
■:hose  of  bodies  or  matter,  and  by  the  entire  drift  of  Scripture.  So 
futile  are  these  objections  to  the  traduction  of  souls  which  have  been 
urged  since  the  days  of  Jerome  in  particular,  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
4th  Century.  Those  we  have  urged  against  Creationism  ought,  we 
think,  to  set  it  forever  aside;  and  the  quiet  concerning  these  two 
opposite  doctrines  during  the  last  two  centuries  ought  to  cease  with 
the  adoption  of  the  one  we  advocate,  since  the  doctrines  of  inher- 
ited depravity  and  of  the  relations  of  mankind  to  Adam  and  to 
Christ  are  so  essentially  involved  in  it,  and  so  marred  by  its  opposite. 

;   187.    WHAT,  ACCORDING  TO  ROM.  5:12-19,  WAS  THE   RELATION  OF 
adam's  sin  to  his  POSTERITV. 

Looking  now  at  the  passage  in  Rom.  5:12-19,  vv^e  inquire  what 
it  teaches  as  to  the  relation  of  Adam's  sin  in  his  trial-action  to  his 
posterity.  Was  its  effect  in  them  substantially  the  same  as  if  it  had 
been  their  own?  In  examining  this  passage,  we  will  mainly  follow 
the  New  Version.  What  else,  then,  is  taught  in  verse  12th — "There- 
fore, as  through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death 
through  sin,  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all  sinned?" 
— or  in  verse  15th — "For  if  by  the  trespass  of  the  one  many  died?" 
— or  in  verse  i6th — "And  not  as  through  one  that  sinned,  so  is  the 
gift:  for  the  judgment  came  of  one  unto  condemnation?" — or  in 
verse  17th — "For  if,  by  the  trespass  of  the  one,  death  reigned 
through  the  one?" — or  in  verse  i8th — "So  then,  as  through  one 
trespass  the  judgment  came  unto  all  men  to  condemnation?" — or  in 
verse  19th — "For,  as  through  the  one  man's  disobedience,  the  many 
were  made  sinners?"  These  citations  have  vastly  increased  force 
from  the  contrasts  stated  between  the  relation  of  Adam  and  of  his 
transgression  to  his  race  and  that  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  obedience 


326  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON"  THE  A  TONE  ME  NT. 

and  gifts  to  the  same,  especially  to  all  who  receive  Him  and  tliem. 
In  Gen.  2:17,  we  have  God's  prohibitory  command  to  Adam  with 
its  added  warning — "  But  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil,  thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it:  for  in  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof 
thou  shalt  surely  die" — "dying  thou  shalt  die."  This  command  he 
transgressed,  and  so  became  subject  to  the  death.  In  the  cited  state- 
ments of  the  apostle,  we  have  the  full  import  of  both  unfolded. 
Neither  does  the  brief  history  in  Genesis,  nor  any  subsequent  reve- 
lation inform  us,  that  God  told  Adam,  or  that  he  knew,  that  his 
obedience  or  disobedience  would  in  any  way  affect  his  descendants 
or  any  one  but  himself;  nor  that  he  yet  knew  that  he  was  to  have 
either  a  wife  or  descendants.  It  was  of  no  importance  that  he  should 
know  these  things,  as  far  as  the  effects  of  his  trespass  upon  his  pos- 
terity were  concerned,  as  they  would  be  the  same  whether  he  knew 
these  or  not.  It  was  not  till  Eve  was  created  that  he  knew  he  was 
to  have  posterity;  and  the  representative  relation  of  himself  and  his 
obedience  or  disobedience  to  them,  and  the  effects  of  his  action  to 
them  in  either  case  are  not  unfolded  till  the  advanced  revelation  of 
the  New  Testament.*  It  seems,  however,  that  some  knowledge  of 
these  things  must  have  been  imparted  to  him.  What  were  the  effects 
of  his  transgression  passed  down  to  them  ?  The  effects  or  conse- 
quences of  sin  are  twofold,  natural  and  retributive  from  God — the 
former  from  the  nature  itself  of  the  sinner  and  of  others  to  whom  he 
is  related;  the  latter  from  the  infliction  by  God  of  its  deserved  pun- 
ishment. Our  inquiry  here  relates  to  its  natural  effects;  and  our 
readiest  way  to  answer  it  is  to  seek  what  they  must  have  been  to 
Adam  himself. 

^  188.    ADAM  AS  CREATED,    AND    THE    EFFECTS   OF  HIS    SIN  ON  HIS 

NATURE. 

All  recorded  concerning  him  shows  that  he  was  created  in  full 
manhood,  adult  in  body  and  mind.  He  was  the  end  and  crown  of 
God's  works  in  the  whole  mundane  creation.  His  body,  the  highest 
realization  of  the  Creator's  ideal  of  organic  form  connected  with  its 
designed  uses  of  all  kinds,  was  all-perfect  in  health  and  vigor,  sym- 
metry and  beauty,  and  in  adaptation  to  the  uses  of  his  soul  as  its 
pliant  servitor  and  mirror,  and  was  formed  for  immortality.  There 
was  nothing  in  it  in  conflict  with  his  soul,  or  its  rectitude  and 
supreme,  immortal  good;  but  it  was  altogether  harmonious  with  the 
whole  grand  destination  of  his  being.     As  to  his  soul,  as  God  cre- 


I*)  Rom.  5:12-19;  I.  Cor.  15:21,  22,  45-49. 


ADAM'S  S/JV.  327 

ated  it  in  His  own  image  arvd  likeness,  there  w.t^,  notaing  disordered, 
ill-biased,  or  impure  in  its  sacred  essence.  All  its  susceptibilities 
and  powers  were  in  perfect  adjustment;  its  moral  reason  was  its 
center  and  controller;  its  will  was  morally  as  well  as  naturally  free 
to  obey  the  mandates  of  reason;  its  sensibility  was  without  perverted 
susceptibilities  and  desires,  and  subject  to  its  will;  and  its  con- 
science shed  constant  approbation  upon  it,  attested  God's  com- 
placency to  it,  and  promised  His  ample  rewards.  Thus,  with  all  its 
faculties  in  faultless  harmony,  as  created,  it  was  as  strong  and  quick 
to  all  right  action  as  a  new-created  angel;  and  its  entire  natural 
bent  and  tendency  impelled  it  to  perfect  rectitude — to  trust,  love, 
and  obey  God,  to  hold  communion  with  Him,  to  seek  and  receive 
His  blessing,  and,  when  others  of  his  kind  should  come,  to  render  to 
them  all  dues  of  love  and  righteousness.  Thus  Adam's  will  was 
virtually  or  potentially  set  in  perfect  aptitude  for  moral  rectitude  by 
his  constitution  before  it  put  forth  any  action  whatever;  so  that  it 
was  certain  that,  as  soon  as  God  should  manifest  Himself  to  him, 
and  teach  him  His  relations  to,  claims  upon,  and  disposition  towards 
him,  he  would  spontaneously  trust,  love,  and  obey  Him.  Such  was 
the  "original  righteousness,"  or  properly  aptitude  for  it,  with  which 
he  was  created,  though  he  was  necessarily  temptable.  We  add  that 
his  spiritual  nature,  fresh  from  its  Creator,  must  have  been  exceed- 
ingly delicate  and  sensitive;  so  that,  acting  rightly,  its  conscience 
must  have  filled  and  thrilled  it  with  a  degree  of  happiness  far  sur- 
passing any  known  among  the  best  of  his  degenerate  race;  and,  act- 
ing wrongly,  must  have  shocked  and  convulsed  it  throughout, 
disrupting  the  unity  of  the  action  of  its  faculties,  and  filling  it  with 
disorder,  schism,  and  conflict,  and  all  their  dire  natural  conse- 
quences; so  that  never  again  in  this  life,  even  under  grace,  could  it 
be  what  it  was  in  innocence  and  obedience.  Milton  represents  that, 
when  Eve  eat  the  forbidden  fruit, 

"  Earth  felt  the  wound;  and  Nature  from  her  seal 
Sighing,  through  all  her  works  gave  signs  of  woe 
That  all  was  lost!  " 

And  again,  that,  when  Adam  eat  it, 

"  Earth  trembled  from  her  entrails  as  again 
In  pangs;  and  Nature  gave  a  second  groan. 
Sky  iovver'd,  and,  muttering  thunder,  some  sad  drop: 
Wept  at  completing  of  the  mortal  sin 
Original." 

This  wound  of  earth  and  shock  and  woe  of  nature  may  fitly  sym- 
bolize the  wound,  shock,  and  woe  of  the  souls  of  the  guilty  pair  from 
the  sin  of  each. 


328  SCRIPTURAL    TEAC///A'GS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

What  now  must  have  been  the  effects  of  that  sin  of  Adam  in  and 
to  himself?  How  must  it  have  stung,  tortured,  and,  as  it  were, 
exasperated  the  sensibility  of  his  conscience,  that  holy  center  and 
vicegerent  of  God  in  his  soul,  and  caused  it  to  burst  out  of  the  native 
harmony  which  had  bound  all  his  moral  faculties  together;  to  turn 
in  terrible  antagonism  against  the  whole  essence  to  which  it  belonged; 
to  pour  through  it,  like  tormenting  venom,  the  sense  of  guilt,  of 
shame,  of  regret,  of  self-contempt,  of  dread  of  God  and  His  retribu- 
tion, and  of  all  good  fled;  to  agonize  it  with  the  excruciation,  as  of 
lacerating  gnawings,  called  remorse;  to  denounce  its  base  apostasy, 
and  foredoom  it  to  deserved  punishment;  and,  by  all  such  antag- 
onism, to  drive  from  it  all  peace  within  and  with  God,  all  trust  in 
and  love  for  Him,  all  pleasure  in  His  will,  all  sacred  hope  and  joy 
in  existence,  all  righteousness,  and  all  power  of  self-recovery!  All 
inward  order  was  broken.  Reason  no  longer  swayed  the  will,  spon- 
taneously pliant  and  obedient  to  its  mandates;  nor  controlled,  by 
the  will,  the  sensibility,  with  its  desires  moderate  and  docile.  These, 
having  broken  the  bounds,  and  all  the  restraints  of  previous  right- 
eousness being  annulled,  became  at  once  imperious  and  turbulent; 
and  domineering  lusts  and  passions  were  then  originated.  Thus 
the  sensibility, 

"Usurping  over  sov'reign  reason,  claim'd 
Superior  sway;  " 

the  will  obeyed  and  was  morally  enslaved  by  it;  and  selfisluicss  was 
the  only  choice  and  action  of  apostate  Adam.  This  schism,  discord, 
perversion  involved  a  weakening  of  all  the  moral  nature.  Moral 
reason  lost  insight  and  clearness  of  vision;  conscience  became  im- 
paired both  as  judicial  and  as  sensitive;  and  all  the  susceptibilities 
connected  with  these  sacred  faculties  were  enfeebled.  God's  rela- 
tions to  him  were,  by  moral  necessity,  changed.  As,  on  Adam's 
side,  were  conscious  guilt,  fear,  shame,  distrust,  wreck  of  love,  and 
initiation  of  selfishness,  so,  on  God's,  were  holy  recoil  and  wrath,  an 
end  of  fellowship  and  complacent  fostering  influence,  the  determin- 
ation to  subject  him  and  his  fellow  culprit  at  once  to  very  great 
providential  and  disciplinary  changes  in  their  persons  and  condi- 
tions, connected  with  putting  them  on  a  gracious  probation,  and  the 
purpose,  if  under  His  grace,  they  would  not  yield  themselves  to  new 
obedience  during  its  continuance,  to  inflict  upon  them  the  retribu- 
tion they  deserved.  Such  were  the  inimediafe  effects  or  consequences 
to  Adam  of  his  transgression,  and  also  to  Eve  of  hers.  Some  of 
them   complete,  some  only  begun,   they   followed  the  sin  of  each 


THREE  DEATHS.  319 

instanlly;  and,  as  they  involved  the  extinction  of  all  spiritual  life  in 
the  souls  of  the  fallen  pair,  they  conslituted  incipient  spiritual  deatii 
in  them,  with  liability  to  positive  retribution  after  the  close  of  their 
granted  probation,  unless  restored  during  it.  This  was  the  very 
death  meant  in  the  threatening — "for,  in  the  day  that  thou  eatcst 
thereof,  dying,  thou  shalt  die;  "  and  it  began  instantly,  as  the  aggre- 
gate natural  consequence  of  sin,  not  as  an  infliction  of  God.  Adam 
could  only  know  the  meaning  of  the  word  die  by  an  inspiration  of 
God  attending  the  threatening;  and  it  was  doubtless  from  his  thus 
understanding  it,  and  his  teaching  it  to  his  receptive  contemporary 
offspring,  who  again  taught  it  to  theirs,  and  so  on  down  the  theistic 
generations,  that  it  came  to  be  used  so  commonly  throughout  the 
Scriptures  to  signify  the  whole  evil,  spiritual  eondition  induced  by  sin, 
including  its  penal  liability.  The  term  life,  as  the  antithesis  of  the 
term  death  in  this  sense,  so  frequent  in  the  Scriptures  from  its  first 
mention  by  Moses  in  Deut.  8:3;  30:15,  19,  signifies  the  whole  good 
spiritual  condition  induced  by  obedience,  including  the  gracious  rewards 
promised  to  follow  in  the  endless  future.  Both  this  death  and  this  life 
consist  in,  or  essentially  are,  the  natural  effects  or  consequences  of 
the  two  contrary  kinds  of  moral  action,  and  even  God  could  not 
prevent  them  except  by  annihilating  the  actors  of  each  kind. 

§  189.    THREE  DEATHS,  BODILY,  SPIRITUAL,  AND  RETRIBUTIVE,  ANL 
OTHER    EVILS. 

We  must  vindicate  the  above.  There  are  three  deaths,  one 
corporeal,  improperly  called  fiatural;  another  spiritual,  just  shown; 
the  third,  called  both  eter?tal  and  the  second  death.*  One  opinion 
in  conflict  with  our  position  is,  that  bodily  death  alone  was  intended 
in  the  threatening;  and  another  is,  that  it  meant  all  the  three  kinds. 
Against  the  first  we  urge  the  following:  There  is  no  evidence  that 
bodily  death  was  a  natural  t'S.&cX.  of  Adam's  sin,  any  more  than  that 
the  multiplied  sorrow  of  Eve,  her  dependent  subjection  to  her  hus- 
band, the  curse  on  the  ground,  its  yielding  thorns  and  thistles  to 
Adam,  his  eating  bread  in  toil  and  sweat  all  his  days,  and  the  herb 
of  the  field  instead  of  the  fruits  of  Paradise,  his  ejection  from  it, 
lest  he  should  take  of  the  tree  of  life  and  eat  and  live  forever,  were 
all  such  effects  of  it;  which  they  plainly  were  not,  but  were  all  to  be 
positive  inflictions.  Gen.  3:16-19.  Against  the  other  of  the  opinions 
we  urge  the  following:     This  death  is  not  the  actual  suffering  of  the 


(*)  Mat.  25:41,  46;  II.  Thess.  1:9;  Kev.  2:11;  22:14,   15;  and  equivalently  in 
many  other  places. 


330  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

positive  retribution  deserved  by  sin,  called  the  second  and  eternal 
death.  For  that  is  not  to  be  inflicted  till  after  bodily  death  or  the 
end  of  probation;  and  it  was  purposely  to  avoid  the  necessity  of 
inflicting  it  on  the  guilty  pair,  or  on  any  of  their  race  who  could  be 
reclaimed,  that  God  put  them  and  the  race  'with  them  on  a  new 
gracious  probation  under  the  designed  redemptive  measure,  which 
He  indicated  to  them  in  the  protevangel  (Gen.  3:15)  before  dooming 
them  to  the  providential  and  disciplinary  evils,  including  bodily 
death,  mentioned  in  Gen.  3:16-19.  These  evils  were  not  included  in 
the  retributive,  penal  death,  but  were  what  God  saw  to  be  essential 
to  any  successful  efficiency  of  the  redemptive  measure  for  the  moral 
rectification  and  salvation  of  men,  and  were  therefore,  in  a  most 
important  sense,  really  embraced  in  or  auxiliary  to  it,  being  designed 
to  be  remedial  in  effect.  If  they  would  return  to  God  under  that 
measure,  not  only  would  they  be  substantially  restored  from  their 
spiritual  death  in  this  life,  but  they  would  never  suffer  the  deserved 
penal  retribution,  being  justified  on  the  ground  of  Christ's  atone- 
ment. Yet,  according  to  this  opinion,  they  must,  though  forgiven, 
still  suffer  bodily  death  as  if  they  had  not  returned!  What  kind  of 
a  forgiveness  would  that  be?  How  can  all  this  consist  with  itself  or 
with  a  real  vicarious  atonement?  The  fact  is,  that  neither  atone- 
ment, nor  pardon  or  justification  relates  to  either  bodily  or  spiritual 
death,  but  to  deserved  positive  punishment  alone,  which  is  the  sec- 
ond or  eternal  death.  Justification  sets  this  aside  for  all  the 
reclaimed,  while  bodily  death  must  be  suffered  by  all,  and  spiritual 
death  is  only  removed  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  What  then  was  the  rela- 
tion of  bodily  death  to  the  sin,  and  to  the  spiritual  death,  of  the 
first  pair  ? 

§  190.    RELATION   OF    BODILY    DEATH    TO    THE    SIN,    AND    TO   THE    SPIR- 
ITUAL DEATH,  OF  THE  FIRST  PAIR. 

The  following  points  seem  manifest: — (i)  It  bore  no  comparison. 
as  an  evil,  in  either  severity  or  duration,  to  the  eternal,  positive 
]jenalty  deserved  by  them.  It  ended  with  the  last  breath,  was  a 
thing  of  minutes,  and  the  involved  separation  of  the  soul  from  the 
body  by  it  was  to  be  terminated  by  the  providential  measure  of  the 
final  resurrection,  whether  the  person  should  be  reclaimed  or  not. 
(2)  It  was  deservedhy  their  sin  in  no  other  way  than  were  all  the  other 
temporary  evils  to  which  they  were  doomed.  But  they  were  subjected 
to  it,  no  more  than  to  the  others,  as  properly  penal  or  retributive, 
but  simply  as  made  necessary  by  their  sin  for  the  ends  of  the  redemp- 


CONSWERA  TI027.  33 1 

tive  system.  (3)  The  atonement  was  not  made  to  save  from  bodily 
death  any  more  than  from  the  other  temporary  evils  of  these  doom- 
ings,  but,  as  said  above,  relates  solely  to  the  deserved,  positive, 
retributive  punishment.  Were  it  a  substitute  for  bodily  death,  as  it 
must  be  if  this  was  included  in  the  retributive  penalty,  then  pardon 
or  justification  must  have  rescued  from  this  with  that;  but  it  does 
not,  as  "it  is  appointed  unto  men  once  to  die."  Besides,  if  it  had 
been  designed  to  be  at  all  a  substitute  for  it,  the  Scriptures  would 
certainly  somewhere  have  said  so,  whereas  they  have  not,  and  their 
whole  drift  is  to  the  contrary;  and,  further,  no  justified  one  would 
ever  suffer  this  death.  (4)  All  the  evils  of  these  doomings  of  Gen. 
3:16-19,  operating  in  connection  with  the  redemptive  provisions  and 
agencies,  become,  in  effect,  according  to  the  Divine  design,  actual 
goods  or  means  of  blessing  to  all  brought  to  repentance,  so  that,  to 
all  such,  even  bodily  death  is  "gain,"  while  the  suffering  of  the  pos- 
itive legal  penalty  can  never  have  any  such  effect,  and  never  be 
"gain,"  but  eternal  loss.  These  evils,  therefore,  cannot  be  penal  or 
retributive,  but  are  merely  providential  and  disciplinary.  It  is  no 
objection  to  this,  that,  in  I.  Cor.  15:26,  bodily  death  is  called  an 
"enemy;"  for  this  is  di.  figure,  and  all  the  other  evils  are  enemies  in  the 
same  sense,  or  they  could  not  be  disciplinary.  This  death  is  so  called 
only  because  it  is  the  most  formidable  of  all  these  evils;  and  yet 
even  it  is  "gain"  to  the  righteous.  It  is  so  because,  among  other 
reasons,  it  opens  the  way  for  the  resurrection-body,  which,  fashioned 
conformably  to  the  body  of  Christ's  glory,  will  inconceivably  excel 
the  one  that  dies.* 

§191.    CONSIDERATION  OF  ROM.    8:18-23,    -^S    RELATED    TO  GEN. 

3:16-19. 

It  seems  important  here  to  consider  the  contents  of  Rom.  8:18- 
23,  which  plainly  refers  to  and  unfolds  Gen.  3:16-19.  It  demon- 
strates that  the  dooms  pronounced  on  the  fallen  pair,  and  in  them 
on  their  posterity,  including  the  curse  on  the  ground,  were  not  prop- 
erly to  penal  retributions  at  all,  not  sentencing  them  to  anything 
threatened  or  warned  against  in  Gen.  2:17,  but  simply  to  the  speci- 
fied/r<?z'^yd'«//(3:/ a«^  ^/i'f^/J/2>zar>'  inflictions  for  the  good  of  them  and 
their  race.  In  verse  17,  the  Apostle  assumed  that  suffering  with 
Christ  was  necessary  to  believers.  For  their  support  and  comfort 
under  them,  he  says  in  verse  18 — "I  reckon   that  the  sufferings  of 

(*)  See  the  excellent  Work  of  the  late  Rev.  Robert  W.  Landis,  D.  D.,  on  The 
Immortality  of  the  Soul,  Part  III.,  Chap.  I.,  pp.  315-348,  for  a  valuable  argument 
on  this  position,  essentially  agreeing  with  our  own. 


332  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  OM  THE  ATONEMENT. 

this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory 
which  shall  be  revealed  to  us-ward."  In  verse  19  he  declares  as  a 
reason  for  estimating  this  glory  so  highly,  that  "the  earnest  expec- 
tation of  the  creature  \_creatioii  of  the  N.  V.  is  too  wide  a  term] 
is  waiting  for  the  revelation  of  the  sons  of  God."  To  show  the  im- 
portance of  this  fact,  he  states  in  verses  20,  21,  the  condition  of  the 
creature,  and  why  it  is  so  waiting — "For  the  creature  was  subjected 
to  vanity,  not  willingly,  but  by  reason  of  Him  who  subjected  it,  in 
hope  that  the  creature  itself  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bond- 
age of  corruption  into  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  children  of 
God."  In  verse  22,  he  appeals  to  the  general  recognition  of  the 
fearful  state  of  vanity  and  bondage  of  corruption  in  which  the 
creature  is — "  For  we  know  that  the  whole  [not  universe  or  crea- 
tion, but]  creature  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together  until 
now."  In  these  verses,  the  Greek  word,  which  we  render  creature, 
as  we  think  it  should  be  throughout,  occurs  four  times,  and  is  plainly 
a  noun  of  multitude.  We  think  its  meaning  very  plain.  What, 
according  to  Gen.  3:16-19,  was  subjected  by  God  to  the  conditions 
stated  by  the  Apostle,  on  the  basis  of  hope,  but  not  willingly?  It 
was  consummately  the  fallen  pair,  and  in  them  their  race.  They 
were  the  intelligent  soul  and  end  oi  all  mundane  nature,  inanimate 
and  animate,  it  having  been  created  for,  and  correlated,  adapted, 
and  made  subservient,  to  them,  its  appointed  possessors  and  lords; 
so  that  they  lived  by  it  and  all  its  ministries  and  supplies;  and  as 
its  condition  would  necessarily  profoundly  operate  upon  and  affect 
them  both  physically  and  morally,  and  they,  by  all  relations  to,  uses 
of,  and  influences  upon  it  would,  in  turn,  correspondingly  affect  it, 
it  was,  of  course,  necessarily  involved  in  their  dooms,  including  the- 
curse  on  the  ground  which  doubtless  implicated  it  all.  But  the 
Apostle,  in  his  reference  to  those  doomings,  makes  no  separation 
between  mankind  and  it  any  more  than  between  their  bodies  and 
souls.  He  lumps  them  and  it  all  into  one  creature  (^k.tIgk:')-^  and 
thus,  instead  of  passing,  in  silence,  the  intelligent,  incomparably 
superior  and  most  suffering  part  of  the  whole,  and,  by  a  monstrous 
prosopopaeia,  intrinsically  absurd  in  itself,  making  the  unintelligent', 
unconscious,  subservient  part,  which,  taken  separately,  is  valueless 
in  itself,  the  subject  of  all  he  ascribes  to  the  creature,  he  ascribes 
nothing  whatever  to  either  the  inferior  or  the  superior  part  separate 
from  the  other,  but  all  to  the  whole  together.  But,  because  man- 
kind is  the  all-important  constituent  of  the  whole,  he  ascribes  the 
condition's,  experiences,  and  activities,  which  are  mainly  peculiar 


WHAT  THIS   WHOLE  PASSAGE  SHOWS.  333 

to  this  constituent,  the  lower  animals  sharing  in  only  the  very  in- 
ferior of  them,  to  the  whole,  just  as  we  do  those  peculiar  to  the  soul 
alone  to  the  whole  man,  soul  and  body.  Brute  matter  has  no  par- 
ticipation in  them.  Thus  understood,  the  Apostle  states  only  pro- 
foundly important  truth  and  fact,  luhen  he  ascribes  to  the  whole 
creature,  under  the  dooms  of  Gen.  3:16-19,  an  "earnest  expectation, 
waiting  for  the  revelation  of  the  sons  of  God" — that  is,  some  such 
one  as  theirs  will  be;  ivhen  he  states  the  historical  fact,  that  it  "was 
subjected  to  vanity,  not  willingly,  but  by  God  upon  the  basis  of 
hope,"  (that  furnished  by  the  protevangel  and  new  probation  of 
grace  (Gen.  3:15),  and  impressed  on  the  race  by  the  Spirit  of  grace), 
that  it  would  yet  be  "delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into 
the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  children  of  God,"  (I.  Cor.  15:42-54) — 
that  is,  into  some  such  liberty  of  glory  as  theirs  will  be;  when  he 
declares,  as  commonly  known  from  the  facts  of  the  world,  that  "  the 
whole  creature  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together  (like  a  vast 
curse-laden  Eve)  until  now;"  and  when  he  says,  that  "we  ourselves 
also,  who  have  the  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit  (that  is,  who,  out  of  the 
whole  creature,  have  become  children  of  God,  and  heirs  of  the  glory 
to  be  revealed  in  all  such),  even  we  ourselves  groan  within  our- 
selves, waiting  for  the  adoption  (the  consummation  of  it),  to  zvit,  the 
redemption  of  the  body" — that  is,  from  its  subjection  to  vanity  and 
the  bondage  of  corruption  by  the  resurrection,  by  which  we  shall 
be  delivered  into  the  full  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  children  of  God, 
and  a  revelation  of  it  shall  be  made. 

§  192.    WHAT  THIS  WHOLE   PASSAGE    SHOWS. 

Thus  this  whole  passage  has  pertinence  to  the  main  point  stated 
in  verse  17,  that  it  was  necessary  that  the  children  and  heirs  of  God 
should  suffer  with  Christ.  It  shows  that  this  necessity  was  created 
by  the  dooms  on  the  fallen  pair  and  their  race,  including  the  curse 
on  the  ground — that  those  doomings  were  not,  as  many  Commen- 
tators assume,  sentencing  that  pair  to  the  death  intended  in  Gen. 
2:17,  which  was  spiritual  and  liability  to  positive  retribution,  or  to 
anything  included  in  it;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that,  as  surgical  ope- 
rations and  other  severe  treatments  of  injured  or  diseased  bodies  or 
parts  of  them  are  to  preserve  or  cure  them,  so  the  inflictions  of  all 
these  doomings  were  severities  designedly  remedial  and  restorative 
to  the  spiritually  dead  souls  of  mankind,  being  connected  with  the 
hope  inspired  by  the  protevangel  of  the  redemptive  measure.  Not 
one  of  them  was  penal  or  properly  retributive;  they  were  all  disci- 


334  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

plinary  or  necessary  means  to  the  greatest  or  to  a77y  success  of  that 
measure  with  its  new  gracious  probation,  and  were  therefore  parts  of 
the  grace- scheme.  We  have,  therefore,  in  this  passage  in  Romans  the 
whole  philosophy  of  the  necessity  for  and  the  uses  of  providential 
and  disciplinary  sufferings  in  this  life,  as  distinguished  from  retribu- 
tive or  penal.  The  relation  of  these  to  the  whole  creature  in  time,  and 
to  the  new  creatures  or  children  of  God  forever,  is  revealed  with  great 
and  various  repetition,  and  with  ever-increasing  distinctness,  through 
the  entire  progressive  revelation  of  Scripture  to  its  end — by  sacred 
historians,  prophets,  psalmists,  our  Lord,  the  Apostles,  and  specially 
by  Paul,  not  in  this  passage  and  Chapter  only,  but  in  numerous 
others  throughout  his  Epistles.  It  is  only  from  this  disclosure  of  the 
necessity  for,  and  beneficent  uses  and  ends  of,  this  perpetual,  awful 
tragedy  of  the  world,  in  which  all  the  human  generations  have  been 
the  principal  participants,  and  all  the  animal  tribes,  and,  in  only  a 
figurative  sense,  inanimate  nature  have  been  subordinate  sharers, 
that  the  least  light  comes  for  the  solution  of  the  profound  problem 
why  this  tragedy  exists,  and  relief  from  the  appalling  spectacle  it 
presents — that  writer,  preacher,  poet,  philosopher,  and  comforter 
have  drawn  the  consolations  and  cheering  wisdom  which  they  im- 
part to  the  suffering,  sorrowing,  despairing,  and  dying.  "For  by 
hope  were  we  saved" — that  is,  by  that  primal  hope,  invigorated  Ly 
all  the  subsequent  additions  to  it,  which,  despite  all  the  subject  oa 
of  the  race  to  vanity  and  the  bondage  of  corruption,  has  still  liv^J 
on  inextinguishable,  an  "earnest  expectation"  in  human  souls. 
Whatever  the  earthly  conditions  and  experiences  of  men  may  be, 
consciously  or  unconsciously  they  look  forward  for  rescue  from  all 
evils  and  for  a  good  that  shall  be  satisfying,  and  a  state  of  being 
that  shall  be  complete;  and,  as  they  know  that  no  such  good  and 
state  are  possible  for  them  in  time,  and  that  they  must  die,  they 
earnestly  hope  and  long  to  find  it  somehow  after  death  in  the  bound- 
less future.  In  the  beautiful  words  of  Augutus  William  Schlegel,  in 
a  Lecture  on  Dramatic  Art  and  Literature,  written  probably  without 
a  thought  of  this  passage  in  his  mind — "  When  the  soul,  resting  as 
it  were  under  the  willows  of  exile,  breathes  out  its  longings  for  its 
distant  home,  what  else  but  melancholy  can  be  the  key-note  of  its 
songs?  "  The  words  of  Cicero  in  his  De  Senectute,  put  in  the  mouth 
of  Cato,  speaking  of  Elysium,  and  those  of  Seneca  concerning  im- 
mortality, seem  as  if  written  to  confirm  the  statements  of  the  great 
Apostle  in  verses  19-21.  Says  Cicero — "O  illustrious  day,  when  I 
shall  go  to  that  assembly  and  union  of  divine  souls,  and  when  I  shall 


WHAT  THIS  WHOLE  PASSAGE  SHOWS. 


335 


leave  this  crowd  and  confusion!  For  I  will  go,  not  to  those  men 
only,  concerning  whom  1  have  before  spoken,  but  also  to  my  Cato 
[his  son],  than  whom  no  better  man  has  been  born,  no  one  more 
excellent  in  piety."  Says  Seneca — "It  pleased  me  to  inquire  con- 
cerning the  eternity  of  souls,  yea,  by  Hercules,  to  believe.  For  I 
easily  believed  the  opinions  of  great  men,  promising  rather  than 
proving  a  most  pleasing  thing.  I  gave  myself  up  to  so  great  a 
hope."  As  to  the  uses  of  suffering  and  affliction,  when  their  end  is 
fulfilled,  says  the  really  great  moral  poet  Young: — 

*'  And  have  I  been  complaining,  then,  so  long? 
Complahiing  of  His  favors,  pain,  and  death? 
Who,  without  pain's  advice,  would  e'er  be  good? 
"Who,  without  death,   l)ut  would  be  good  in  vain? 
Pain  is  to  save  from  pain;  all  punishment  (discipline) 
To  make  for  peace;  and  death  to  save  from  death." — JVigkt  IX. 

"Amid  my  list  of  blessings  infinite, 

Stand  this  the  foremost,   'That  my  heart  has  bled.' 

'Tis  heav'n's  last  effort  of  good-will  to  man; 

When  pain  can't  bless,  heav'n  quits  us  in  despair." — Idem. 

The  same  great  lesson  is  beautifully  taught  in  Gray's  Ode  to  Adver- 
sity; in  Wordsworth's  Excursion;  in  the  last  two  Books  of  Paradise 
Lost;  and  God's  mysterious  way  of  treating  men  in  His  Providential 
dealings  with  them  is  remarkably  shown  in  Samson  Agonistes,  lines 
667-709.  Of  course,  if  the  beneficent  ends  of  man's  subjection  to 
vanity  are  unsecured  in  any,  it  is  by  their  own  persistent  sin. 

In  view  of  all  thus  shown  against  the  notion,  that  the  doomings 
of  the  first  pair,  and  with  them  of  their  race,  to  bodily  death  were 
sentencing  them  to  the  death  or  to  any  part  of  it,  threatened  in  Gen. 
2:17,  we  urge  its  rejection,  as  not  only  wholly  erroneous,  but  equally 
injuriotis  in  its  bearings  on  the  true  view  of  i-etributive  penalty;  of 
the  grace  of  God  in  placing  man  immediately  after  the  fall  on  a 
gracious  probation  under  the  redemptive  measure;  of  the  designed 
uses  or  mission  of  providential  and  disciplinary  sufferings,  as  auxil- 
iary to  that  measure;  of  the  real  atonement,  as  a  substitute  for  the 
positive  penalty  incurred  by  sin;  of  justification  on  the  ground  of 
it,  as  rescue  from  the  penalty  in  accordance  with  the  justice  of  the 
law;  of  the  resurrection  of  the  bodies  of  all  men,  good  and  bad,  as 
inconsistent  with  the  position  that  bodily  death  is  the  whole  or  a 
part  of  the  penalty  of  sin;  and  of  all  involved  and  correlated  truth. 
It  is  confusing,  misleading,  and  subversive;  and  without  basis  in 
either  Gen.  2:17  or  3:16-19.  For  (i)  in  the  latter  passage,  it  is  pure 
arbitrariness  to  single  out  bodily  death  from  the  other  dooms  as  all 
or  part  of  the  death    threatened  in  the  former.     (2)  There  is  no 


336  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

exegetical  warrant  for  taking  the  dooniings  in  it  as  God's  sentencing 
man  to  any  part  of  the  death  threatened  in  the  former.  (3)  In  this) 
the  warning  announccmefit  was — ''  in  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof 
thou  shalt  surely  die."  As  shown,  both  Adam  and  Eve  did,  tliat 
very  day,  instantly  die  a  spiritual  death,  while  he  did  not  die  bodily 
for  nearly  a  thousand  years  after. 

§  193.    INHERITED  EFFECTS  OF  ADAM'S  SINJ    ATONEMENT  ANU  THE  HOLY 
SPIRIT  NECESSARY  TO  SAVE  EVEN  INFANTS. 

We  have  shown  the  natural  effects  of  the  disobedience  of  the 
first  pair  in  their  souls  and  upon  their  relations  to  God,  in  contrast 
with  what  those  of  their  obedience  would  have  been;  and  also  that 
they  propagated  their  species,  or  entire  complex  nature,  soul  and 
body;  and  now,  it  seems  to  us,  we  need  not  make  a  great  mystery 
of  the  transmission  to  their  posterity  of  those  effects,  and  the  per- 
version or  vitiation  they  involve.  What  else  could  they  propagate 
than  offspring  "in  their  own  likeness"  (Gen.  5:3),  having  the  same 
disorder,  vitiation,  and  bias  of  will  to  wrong  moral  action,  which 
they  had?  How  could  natures  so  perverted  issue  offspring  in  arche- 
typal order  of  spirit? — natures  in  spiritual  death  issue  offspring  in 
the  integrity  of  spiritual  life? — natures  in  the  relations  to  God  of 
their  perversion  issue  offspring  in  relations  to  Him  of  unperverted 
spiritual  life,  and  bias  of  will  to  right  moral  action?  Well  might 
Adam  say,  as  Milton  represents: — 

"  But  from  me  what  can  proceed, 
But  all  corrupt:  both  mind  and  will  depraved, 
Not  to  do  only,  but  to  will  the  same 
With  me?  " 

We  have  shown  in  what  sense  Adam  could  be  created  righteous — 
that,  from  the  perfection  of  his  nature,  he  would  spontaneously  will 
rightly  in  his  first  moral  choice,  so  that  his  will  was  virtually  or 
potetitially  righteous  in  the  sense  of  being  naturally  apt  or  bent  to 
right  moral  action  before  it  acted  morally.  After  the  vitiation  of 
his  nature  by  his  sin,  its  aptness  or  bent  was  to  the  opposite  until 
changed  by  regeneration,  as  we  think  both  his  and  Eve's  were  (Gen. 
3:20,  21;  4:1,  25,  in  connection  with  3:15).  Now,  just  as,  if  they 
had  not  sinned,  their  offspring  would  have  inherited  their  perfect 
nature  and  virtually  right  wills,  so,  as  they  sinned  and  brought  the 
perversion  of  the  natural  effects  of  their  sin  into  their  nature,  their 
offspring  naturally  inherited  this  perversion,  including  virtually 
wrong  wills,  so  that  their  posterity  all  spontaneously  choose  sinfully 
in  their  first  moral  acting,  and  will  do  so  forever  if  not  regenerated 


What  this  whole  passage  shows.  33? 

in  time.  But  sin  is  vastly  more  than  mere  injury  to  themselves  and 
each  other — than  the  mother  of  only  those  effects  which  constitute 
spiritual  death.  It  is  manifold  in  wrong  qualities  against  God,  as 
well  as  against  His  universal  moral  society.  It  is  intrinsically  dis- 
belief concerning  Him,  rebellion  against  His  authority,  self-will 
confronted  against  His  will,  the  enthronement  of  self  instead  of  Him, 
and  disregard  of  all  His  rights,  dues,  claims,  and  government.  It 
is  selfishness  against  Him  and  all  other  moral  beings  as  such.  How, 
then,  could  God  not  hold  and  treat  the  fallen  pair  and  all  actual 
sinners  of  their  race  accordingly — as  deserving  penal  retribution 
from  Him,  as  in  and  Ruler  of  the  universal  moral  society,  propor- 
tional to  the  guilt  of  each?  How  could  He,  with  any  justice,  regard 
and  treat  them  as  obedient,  or  not  either  inflict  that  retribution  on 
every  one  of  them,  or  vindicate  His  justice  against  them  in  some 
other  way?  As  to  children  of  Adam's  race,  not  yet  actual  sinners, 
but  inheriting  the  vitiation  and  potential  wrong  wills  stated,  and 
sure  to  sin  as  soon  as  they  act  morally,  even  if  taken  to  heaven 
without  repair,  how  about  them,  if  they  die  before  they  so  act? 
Could  He  possibly  hold  and  treat  them  otherwise  than  according  to 
what  they  really  are,  or  as  if  they  had  no  such  vitiation  of  nature 
and  will?  We  surely  believe  all  of  them,  so  dying,  will  be  saved, 
but  not  according  to  the  law  or  its  justice;  but  by  virtue  of  the 
atonement  and  the  regenerating  agency  of  the  Spirit  which  it  secures 
for  them.  The  atonement  was  as  really  necessary  to  put  them,  as 
to  put  actual  sinners,  into  right  relations  to  God  and  the  universal 
moral  society.  For,  with  their  inherited  bias  of  will  to  sin,  making 
their  actual  sinning  certain  when  they  act  morally,  they  are  already 
alien,  and  are  sure  to  be  antagonist,  to  the  universal  and  eternal  moral 
system,  and  to  deserve  the  penal  retribution  necessary  by  that  sys- 
tem; so  that  their  reinstatement  in  it  is  possible  only  on  the  atone- 
ment. Then,  they  equally  need  regeneration  to  remove  their  spir- 
itual death  and  to  institute  spiritual  life  in  them;  and  the  Holy 
Spirit,  secured  for  and  given  to  operate  upon  mankind  by  the  atone- 
ment, doubtless  effects  the  regeneration  of  all  children  who  die  before 
they  act  morally.  Thus  they  are  all  saved,  and  on  the  same  ground 
and  by  the  same  agency,  as  all  actual  sinners  are,  who  are  saved. 
\\\\\,  back  of  the  reasons  just  stated,  why  they  could  not  be  saved 
on  any  legal  ground,  but  only  by  the  atonement  and  the  regeneration 
by  the  Spirit  given  on  its  basis,  is  the  fact  shown  by  the  whole  Scrip- 
tural account  of  the  case,  that  Adam's  trial  action  was  really  that  of 
ail  his  posterity — that  the   thou  in  the  coaming  in  Gen.  2:17  was 


338  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

virtually  iJioic  and  ihy  race.  Even  the  temporal  dooms  on  the  guilty 
pair  were  not  confined  to  them;  for  certainly  that  on  Eve  extended 
to  all  her  daughters  in  like  conditions  to  the  last;  and  those  on  Adam 
to  all  his  sons,  and  mainly  to  his  daughters  too;  and  who  will  say 
that  the  curse  on  the  ground  ended  with  him  ?  Nor,  from  the  race- 
constitution,  could  it  possibly  be  otherwise.  Despite  all  the  differ- 
ence between  the  relation  of  the  original  pair  to  their  offspring  and 
that  of  all  subsequent  parents  to  theirs,  the  representative  character 
of  the  relation  constantly  more  or  less  reappears,  not  only  as  to 
temporal  conditions  and  positions  in  society  of  offspring,  but  as  to 
moral  and  religious  tendencies  and  shapings  of  character  and  des- 
tiny, relations,  and  experiences. 

We  believe  we  have  shown  that  the  death  warned  against  in 
Gen.  2:17  was  entirely  spiritual,  and  included  only  liability  to  the 
penal  retribution  deserved  by  sin,  which  is  eternal  death,  and  is,  in 
the  Apocalypse,  four  times  called  by  John  the  second  death  (2:11; 
20:6,  14;  21:8).  Because  this  was  positive,  its  infliction  could  be 
suspended,  the  guilty  pair  was  spared,  their  race  was  continued,  and 
the  redemptive  measure  with  a  new,  gracious  probation  provided 
for  them,  so  that  it  need  not,  and  would  not,  ever  be  indicted  upon 
them  or  any  of  their  race,  if  they  would  comply  with  its  necessary 
moral  conditions.  None  who  do  so  will  ever  suffer  it,  nor  will  others 
till  their  gracious  probation  ends  at  death.  In  the  intermediate  state, 
the  incorrigible  will  be  abandoned  by  God,  separated  from  the 
righteous,  and  in  a  place  of  punishment  corresponding  to  their 
bodiless  condition  (Luke  16:23-28);  but  they  will  not  be  subjected 
to  the  infliction  of  this  second  death  till  after  the  resurrection  and 
judgment  (Mat.  13:40-42;  25:41;  Rev.  20:12-15;  21:8).  Spiritual 
death,  which  is  a  wholly /^rj<?«^/ matter,  came  immediately  into  the 
souls  of  the  sinning  pair  by  necessity  of  their  nature,  not  by  inflic- 
tion of  God,  while  this  retributive  penal  death,  which  is  social,  will 
not  come  on  any  by  their  nature,  but  will  be  inflicted  by  God  as 
ethical  justice  to  the  universal,  holy  society,  including  Himself.  Of 
course,  spiritual  death  will  be  eternal  in  all  not  regenerated  in  time; 
but  it  is  not  the  endurance  of  this  retributive  punishment  deserved 
by  sin,  which  is  the  second  death. 

§  194.    DIRECT    EXAMINATION    OF    ROM.    5:12-19.       VERSE   12    CON- 
SIDERED. 

From    the    foregoing,    the    reason   is  manifest  why  and    how 
"through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  through 


BXAMINA  TION  of  ROM.  5:12  ig.  539 

sin;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all  sinned."  All 
sinned — (i)  virtually  in  the  trial-action  of  Adam,  their  natural  and 
representative  head;  just  as  in  the  doomings  of  Gen.  3:16-19,  all 
daughters  are  held  to  have  sinned  in  her  transgression  (I.  Tim.  2: 
12-15),  and  all  Adam's  offspring  of  both  sexes  are  held  to  have 
sinned  in  his; — (2)  by  inheriting  from  him  the  natural  effects  of  his, 
including  virtual  wrong  wills,  incipient  spiritual  death.  We  must 
not  suppose  that  this  inheritance  implies  privation  of  wa/z/ra/ //-^i?- 
dom  of  will,  or  power  to  begin  and  continue  right,  instead  of  wrong, 
moral  choice  in  view  of  motives;  for,  if  it  did,  they  could  not  act 
morally,  commit  actual  sin,  nor  have  a  gracious,  or  any  personal, 
probation;  and  there  could  be  no  redemptive  system  for  them. 
However  long  or  much  they  may  actually  sin,  and  form  the  habit  ot 
sinning,  or  obey,  and  form  the  habit  of  obeying,  this  natural  power 
of  choosing  rightly  or  wrongly,  even  of  changing  moral  choice, 
under  motives  and  influences,  belongs  to  them,  as  long  certainly  as 
they  are  on  probation.  It  cannot  longer,  because  it  has  both  a  sub- 
jective and  objective  basis,  as  has  been  previously  shown.  For, 
besides  the  subjective  confirmation  of  habit,  there  will  be  no  objec- 
tive motives  and  influences  to  operate  upon  either  the  righteous  or 
the  wicked  to  induce  either  ever  to  change  their  radical  choice.* 
Besides  the  testimony  of  consciousness  in  mankind,  that,  despite  all 
their  inherited  bad  condition,  they  do  still  possess  this  power  of 
moral  choice  under  the  motives  and  influences  which  operate  upon 
them  in  this  life,  the  facts  of  their  being  under  a  gracious  probation 
and  of  the  redemptive  system  with  its  conditions,  motives,  and 
influences  prove  that  there  is  no  natural  necessity  that  their  inherited 
virtual  wrong  will  should  become  actual  in  their  first  or  any  other 
moral  act  during  their  probation,  or  that  they  could  not  will  rightly 
from  first  to  last.  Nevertheless,  such  is  the  force  of  their  whole 
perversion,  the  weakness  of  the  motives  and  influences  upon  them 
in  it  against  sin,  and  the  strength  of  those  to  it,  that  they  all  do  sin 
from  the  first,  and  onward,  except  those  turned  from  it  by  regenera- 
tion; and  because,  by  doing  so,  they  morally  sanction  and  appropri- 
ate the  sin  and  guilt  of  Adam  in  addition  to  their  spiritual  death, 
they  thus  incur  the  sentence  to  positive  retributive  punishment,  and 
are  necessarily  forever  lost,  unless  saved  by  the  grace  of  God  de- 
veloped in  and  through  the  atonement  of  Christ.  The  connection 
of  verse  12  and  onward  with  verse  11  makes  it  important  to  observe 
the  use  of    the   Greek   verb  la/ipdveiv  in  verse   1 1,  where  it  means 

(*)  See  this  point  illustrated  in  §  96, 


340  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

have  received  or  appropriated,  as  it  also  does  inverse  17.  It  is  plain 
from  the  relation  of  Adam  to  his  race,  as  naturally  its  head  and 
representative,  and  from  that  of  Christ  to  it,  as  supernaturally  the 
same,  and  from  the  relation  of  the  action  of  each  of  them,  as  such, 
to  it,  that,  as  there  is  a  voluntary  receiving  or  appropriating  of  "  the 
reconciliation"  of  God  to  man  by  the  atonement,  and  "the  abund- 
ance of  grace,"  etc.,  effected  by  Christ's  action,  by  all  who  become 
Christians,  so  there  is  of  the  sin  and  condemnation,  effected  by 
Adam,  by  all  who  become  actual  sinners.  The  expression,  "all 
sinned"  (not  "have  sinned"),  at  the  close  of  this  verse,  doubtless 
refers  to  the  transgression  of  Adam,  as,  in  effect,  that  of  all.  Says 
Dr.  Schaff,  in  Lange's  Commentary  on  Romans,  in  loco — "The  aorist 
was  chosen  with  reference  to  the  past  event  of  Adam's  fall,  which  was 
at  the  same  time  virtually  the  fall  of  the  human  race  as  represented 
by  him,  and  germinally  contained  in  him."  We  think  we  have  shown 
that  spiritual  death  did  in  fact,  by  natural  necessity,  enter  the  world 
by  Adam's  sin  and  "passed  unto  all  men  because  all  sinned,"  while 
bodily  did  not  so  enter,  and  was  not  penal  at  all,  but  was  appointed  by 
God  purely  for  redemptive  purposes.  There  is  no  evidence  that  it 
would,  but  clear  evidence  that  it  would  not,  have  come  upon  man 
at  all,  although  fallen,  if  it  had  not  been  thus  appointed.  Medicine 
is  given  in  consequence  of  disease,  not  as  penalty  for  it,  but  to  cure 
it.  vSo,  like  all  the  other  providential  and  disciplinary  evils,  this 
death  is  neither  a  natural  effect,  nor  the  retributive  penalty  of  sin, 
but  was  appointed  to  man  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  antidote  for  it 
or  some  of  its  natural  effects.  In  this  sense  only  can  it  be  recog- 
nized as  a  consequence  of  sin,  as  medicine  may  be  of  disease;  and, 
in  this  sense,  it  may  be  referred  to  as  an  index  and  proof  that  the 
real  disease  of  spiritual  death  is  universal,  but  no  other.  If  alluded 
to  at  all  in  the  term  death  in  this  passage,  it  can  only  be  in  this  sense, 
while  spiritual  death  is  the  real  kind  of  death  intended.  This  is 
evident,  not  only  from  what  has  been  shown,  but  from  the  whole 
scope  of  verses  12-19,  and  from  the  use  of  the  term  in  the  same  sense 
right  on  in  Chap.  6:13,  16,  21,  23; — in  Chap.  7:5,  10,  24; — in  Chap. 
8:2,6;  and  elsewhere  whenever  this  Apostle  speaks  of  the  generic 
effect  of  sin,  as  in  Eph.  2:1,  5,  and  in  Col.  2:13.  The  purpose  of 
this  passage,  verses  12-19,  i^  ^^  exhibit  in  contrast,  "on  the  basis  of 
a  vital,  organic  union  of  humanity,  both  in  the  order  ol  fallen  nature 
and  in  that  of  redeeming  grace,"  the  bad  effects  in  and  upon  the 
race  by  the  fall  of  Adam,  its  natural  head  and  representative,  and  the 
good  effects  provided  for,  and  secured  in  and  upon  all  who  "receive 


VERSES  IS  AND  14  CONSIDERED.  341 

the  abundance  of  the  grace,"  etc.,  of  the  obedience  of  Christ,  the 
second  Adam,  its  supernatural  head  and  representative.  According 
to  this  purpose,  verse  12,  which  introduces  the  contrast,  is  a  gen- 
eral statement  of  the  bad  effects  of  Adam's  transgression  in  and  upon 
the  race;  and  verses  13,  14  are  designed  at  once  to  meet  a  seeming 
objection  to  the  statement,  and  to  confirm  it. 

VERSES   13,  14  CONSIDERED. 

Supplying  in  brackets  what  is  implied  in  verse  13,  it  reads 
thus — "For  until  the  [revealed]  law  [was  given,  2513  years  after 
Adam's  fall],  sin  was  in  the  world:  but  sin  is  not  imputed  when 
there  is  no  law."  There  was  no  positive,  or  declared  law  over  man- 
kind all  that  time,  just  as  there  has  been  none  since  over  the  heathen, 
and  of  course  they  did  not  transgress  any,  just  as  the  heathen  have 
not  since;  yet  there  was  sin  in  them  all  that  time,  as  there  has  been 
in  the  heathen  ever  since.  How  it  was  in  them  we  have  abundantly 
shown,  both  as  virtual  wrong  will,  and  as  actual  violation  of  the  law 
in  and  from  their  moral  reason  when  and  after  they  began  to  act 
morally  (Rom.  2:14,  15).  It  was,  therefore,  imputed  to  them  all 
that  time,  as  it  has  been  to  the  heathen  since,  and  always  will  be, 
though  not  as  transgression  of  any  declared,  positive  law  or  com- 
mand of  God,  such  as  Adam  transgressed.  Having  thus  maintained 
his  statement  in  verse  12,  as  to  Adam's  causing  sin  to  enter  into  the 
htiman  world,  and  as  to  tlie  participation  of  all  the  race  in  it,  the 
Apostle,  in  like  manner,  maintains  in  verse  14  his  other  statements 
inverse  12,  that  "death  entered  into  the  world  through  sin,"  and 
that  "it  passed  unto  all  men',  because  all  sinned."  He  declares  that, 
although  "sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no  law,"  death,  its  con- 
sequence, "reigned  from  Adam  until  Moses,  even  over  them  that 
had  not  sinned  after  the  likeness  of  Adam's  transgression,  who  is  a 
type  (or  figure)  of  Him  that  was  to  come."  That  is,  it  reigned 
over  all,  though  they  did  not  transgress  a  declared  positive  law, 
like  that  of  Moses,  nor  a  command,  like  that  to  Adam,  and  not, 
therefore,  on  account  of  such  sin;  which  is  ec^ually  true  of  the  whole 
heathen  world  since.  Hence,  the  fact  that  it  did  reiga  those  2513 
years  over  all  (and  over  all  since),  proves  that  sin,  its  cause,  was  in 
and  acted  by  all  men  all  that  time,  and  so  is  in  and  acted  by  the 
whole  race  since,  which  confirms  verse  12.  Bodily  death  may  be  em- 
braced in  the  meaning  of  the  term  "death"  in  this  verse  in  the  sense 
explained,  as  an  index  and  proof  of  the  universal  existence  of  the 
spiritual  death  of  mankind,  which  is  its  fundamental  meaning.  From 


342  SCRIPTURAL  TEACIIIA'GS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

what  has  been  shown,  this  must  be  so;  but,  in  addition,  the  plain 
purpose  of  the  passage,  and  the  contrast  it  exhibits  demand  this 
meaning  and  forbid  the  supposition  that  bodily  death,  which,  as 
Lange,  in  his  comment  on  verse  12,  says,  "in  itself  has  no  biblical  and 
ethical  significance,"  should  be  in  its  meaning,  except  as  stated. 
The  death  in  this  verse  must  be  the  same  as  that  in  verses  12,  15 
(died),  17,  and  in  all  the  places  referred  to  above,  and  as  the  object 
of  the  condemnation  in  verses  16,  17.  To  suppose  it  to  mean  or  to 
include  bodily  death,  except  as  stated,  is  at  war  with  the  whole 
argument.  It  is  not  merely  to  swell  a  neither  natural  nor  penal,  but 
simply  a  providential  and  disciplinary  appointed  consequence  of 
Adam's  sin  into  its  only  or  main  natural  effect,  while  the  incompar- 
ably worse  matter,  the  appalling  soul-blight  of  that  sin,  which  did 
naturally  fall  on  and  curse  the  total  race,  is  either  passed  in  silence 
or  dwarfed  to  comparative  insignificance,  but,  since,  by  the  con- 
trast, the  measure  of  the  bad  effects  of  Adam's  sin  is  the  criterion 
by  which  to  estimate  the  antithetic  measure  of  the  good  effects  of 
Christ's  whole  action  and  suffering  for  the  race,  it  is  correspond- 
ingly and  incalculably  to  shrink  the  latter  from  the  vastness  which 
Paul  evidently  intended  to  ascribe  to  them  to  the  mere  subordinate 
matter  of  the  restoration  of  bodily  life  to  the  bodily  dead!  The 
masterly  logic  of  the  great  Apostle  never  formed  an  argument  so  in 
conflict  with  itself,  and  so  intrinsically  ridiculous  as  that.  Progress 
through  the  remaining  verses  is  now  easy. 

§  195.    ADAM,  THE  TVPE,  AND  CHRIST  THE  ANTITYPE. 

Adam  was  "  a  type  of  Him  that  was  to  come" — the  second 
Adam,  designed  to  stand  in  a  similar,  but  higher  relation  to  the 
race — the  antitype.  Like  the  type,  as  to  His  human  nature.  He  was 
directly  originated  by  God.*  Yet,  as  He  was  to  come  by  human 
maternity,  to  be  "  the  seed  of  the  woman,"  He  was  organically  one 
of  the  race,  as  Adam  was.  Thus  originated,  He  inherited  no  vitia- 
tion, no  spiritual  perversion,  as  Adam  did  not;  and  so,  while,  "  in 
all  things  [of  true  archetypal  human  nature]  it  behooved  Him  to  be 
made  like  His  brethren,  that  He  might  be  a  merciful  and  faithful 
High  Priest  in  things  pertaining  to  God,  to  make  propiation  for  the 
sins  of  the  people"  (Heb.  2:17),  and  while  He  "was  made  flesh,"  a 
real  human  nature  (John  1:14),  He  was  not  "flesh  of  sin,"  that  is, 
of  that  nature  as  vitiated,  but  "in  the  likeness  of  it  (Rom.  S:^^,  in 
the  likeness  of  men,"   but  archetypally  perfect   (Phil.   2:7).     Thus, 

(*)  Mat.  1:20;  Luke  1:35;  John  1:14;  Rom.  1:3,  4;  Gal.  4:4. 


ADAM  AND  CHRIST.  343 

while,  as  man,  He  was  germinally  directly  created  by  God  as  Adam 
was,  yet,  as  the  seed  of  the  woman,  of  David,  and  of  Abraham,  He 
was  one  of  the  race;  and,  besides  being  perfectly  pure  from  inherited 
perversion,  this  human  nature  was  in  personal  union  with  His  Divine 
nature.  Such  and  so  qualified  was  this  second  head  and  represen- 
tative of  the  race.  As  the  first  was  put  under  a  declared  positive 
command  of  God,  and  tried  under  it  for  himself  and  the  race,  so 
this  second  "was  born  under  [the  declared  positive  Mosaic]  law," 
in  relations  and  conditions  which  made  obedience  to  it  incompar- 
ably more  difficult,  as  they  included  His  rendering  it  even  unto 
enduring  His  atoning  sufferings  and  death,  and  under  it  He  was 
tried  for  Himself  and  the  race.  As  the  trial  of  Adam,  so  His  was 
purely  legal.  He  must  stand  in  the  same  law-place  and  relations  to 
the  race  in  which  Adam  stood;  so  that,  by  meeting  all  the  demands 
of  the  law  upon  Himself*  rt-;?^  ihem,  both  for  the  obedience  which 
Adam  failed  to  render  for  himself  and  them,  and  for  the  retributive 
penal  sufferings  or  "curse,"  to  which  they  were  lial/le  in  consequence 
of  his  sin,  He  could,  as  representing  them,  free  them  from  that 
curse  and  the  conditions  of  the  legal  probation,  and  put  them  on  a 
gracious  one,  or  under  grace.  Thus,  by  or  in  these  two  representa- 
tives, the  race  had  two  trials  or  probations — the  first  purely  legal, 
and  a  failure;  the  second  also  purely  legal,  and  a  perfect  success. 
But,  unlike  the  first,  this  was  undertaken  and  carried  through  from 
pure  mercy  and  grace  to  them,  even  to  the  endurance  by  its  actor 
of  the  penal  curse  to  which  they  were  all  liable.  Then,  besides 
these,  they  have  each  a  third,  secured  for  them  by  this  second  and 
successful  legal  one,  under  all  the  advantages,  provisions,  motives, 
influences,  and  agencies  of  the  redemptive  measure.  Not  a  fair 
probation!  Was  that  of  the  angels  as  good?  We  ask,  then,  that  it 
may  be  distinctly  noticed,  that  everything  concerning  the  moral 
action,  relations  to  God,  and  destiny  of  mankind  is  rooted  in  and 
depends  on  the  representative  relations  and  action  of  these  two 
persons,  the  first  naturally,  the  second  supernaturally,  the  head  of 
the  race.  God's  whole  course  of  government  over,  and  dealing 
with,  them  starts  from,  and  is  determined  by,  the  representative 
action  of  these  two  heads.  It  is  by  that  of  the  first  that  the  race  is 
in  sin,  and  involved  in  all  its  consequences;  it  is  by  that  of  the 
second  that  each  of  it  all  has  a  gracious  probation.  Christianity 
rests  entirely  on  this  basis,  and  cannot  stand  without  it.  From  the 
race-constitution,  it  could  not  possibly  be  otherwise. 


344  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

VERSES  15-17. 
In  these  verses,  the  Apostle  shows  that,  notwithstanding  the 
essential  correspondence  of  the  antitype  to  the  type;  and  antithet- 
ically of  the  action  and  its  effects  of  each  in  and  upon  the  race, 
there  are  momentous  dissimilitudes  between  the  two  classes  of  effects 
of  the  two  in  and  upon  it,  as  to  their  comparative  measure  of  great- 
ness— those  of  Christ  and  His  action  far  exceeding  those  of  Adam 
and  his  action.  Verse  15  says — "  But  not  as  the  trespass,  so  also  is 
the  free  gift.  For,  if,  by  the  trespass  of  the  one,  the  many  died, 
much  more  did  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  gift  by  the  grace  of  the 
one  man,  Jesus  Christ,  abound  unto  the  many,"  or  all.  This  is  a 
general  statement  of  the  contrast  between  the  effect,  the  death, 
brought  on  all  by  the  trespass  of  the  one  Adam,  and  "  the  grace  of 
God,  and  the  gift  by  the  grace  of  the  one  man,  Jesus  Christ,"  the 
second  Adam,  in  which  the  gracious  gift  is  declared  to  abound  by 
much  more  over  the  death;  for  the  "much  more,"  if  logical,  is  so 
because  it  is  certainly  real.  This  statement  is  unfolded  in  verses 
16,  17,  in  which  it  is  divided  into  two  branch-contrasts,  each  exhib- 
iting the  same  excess  of  the  grace  and  the  gift  over  the  death.  The 
first  is  in  verse  16,  and  is  between  the  condemning  judgment  brought 
on  all  by  the  one  trespass  of  Adam,  and  the  free  gift  brought  from 
many  trespasses  unto  a  justifying  act  by  the  one  Jesus  Christ.  The 
second  is  in  verse  17,  and  is  between  the  reign  over  all  of  the  spir- 
itual death  brought  on  all  by  the  first,  and  the  renewal  to  spiritual 
life,  with  destination  to  reign  in  heaven  forever  in  eternal  life,  of  all 
who  receive,  appropriate  the  abundance  of  grace  and  of  the  gift  of 
justification  provided  by  Jesus  Christ.  Accordingly  verse  16  says — 
"And  not  as  through  one  that  sinned,  so  is  the  gift;  for  the  judg- 
ment ca7ne  of  one  unto  condemnation,  but  the  free  gift  came  from 
many  trespasses  unto  a  justifying  act,"  or  act  of  righteousness.* 
Here  we  have  the  contrast  of  a  condemning  judgment  of  God,  not 
only  on  Adam,  but  on  all  his  posterity  on  account  of  his  one  tres- 
pass, and  of  a  free  gift,  even  to  the  righteous  act  of  Christ  in  mak- 
ing His  atonement  as  a  basis  of  justification  of  all  from  their  many 
trespasses.  This  judgment  on  Adam,  even  to  condemnation  of  him 
and  his  race,  was  not  the  dooming  of  him  and  them  to  bodily  death 
in  Gen.  3:19,  nor  sentencing  him  or  them  to  the  spiritual  death  of 
Gen.  2:17,  but  to  the  positive  retributive  punishment  deserved  by 
his  one  sin,  which  includes  abandonment  to  spiritual  death.     This; 

(*)  Langc,  and  especially  Schaff,  on  verse   16,  in  Lange's  Commentary  ort 
Romans. 


VERSES  1S-17.  345 

engulfed  all;  but  the  free  gift  is  for  the  rescue  of  all,  not  from  this 
only,  but  from  all  the  condemnations  incurred  by  all  his  and  their 
trespasses.  So  vastly  does  the  amplitude  of  this  gift  exceed  the  con- 
demnation of  Adam  and  his  race  for  his  one  fall.  While  in  this 
verse  the  contrast  is  between  the  condemnation  brought  on  all  by 
the  fall  of  Adam,  and  the  gift  of  grace  provided  by  Christ  for  all 
for  their  justification,  z';2  verse  17  it  is  between  the  spiritual  death 
inherited  by  all  from  Adam,  however  increased  by  their  actual  sin, 
and  the  same  gift  of  grace,  as  equally  exceeding  this  death  in  power 
to  rescue  from  it,  and  to  impart  spiritual  life.  It  says — "  For  if,  by 
the  trespass  of  the  one,  death  reigned  through  the  one;  much  more 
shall  they  that  receive  the  abundance  of  grace  and  the  gift  of  justifi- 
cation reign  in  life  through  the  one,  even  Jesus  Christ."  In  vain 
would  there  be  a  provision  for  jtistification,  if  it  were  not  also  for 
rescue  from  spiritual  death,  the  ground  and  source  of  all  actual  sin 
and  its  guilt,  to  spiritual  life,  the  ground  and  source  of  all  right 
action  and  its  promised  rewards  of  grace.  This  gift  of  grace  effects 
both  of  these  in  immediate  connection;  but  neither  of  them  for  any. 
except  those  who  receive  or  appropriate  it  by  faith.  This  receiving 
it  is  at  once  the  initiation  of  this  lile,  and  the  condition  of  justifica- 
tion. The  latter  is  God's  act  for  them,  admitting  of  no  degrees, 
but  complete  at  once;  the  former  is  in  their  souls  and  wills — at  first 
infantile,  but  to  grow  through  temporal  life,  gradually  supplanting 
spiritual  death  or  its  natural  consequences,  till  at  bodily  death  it 
is  perfected  in  their  souls.  Then  Christ  will  consummate  His  grace 
towards  them  by  exalting  them  to  share  in  His  own  dignity,  power, 
glory,  and  blessedness,  and  they  will  reign  with  Him  forever  in  eter- 
nal life.  We  thus  see  the  meaning  of  the  "much  more"  in  this 
verse,  which  again,  if  logical,  is  also  real,  as  is  shown  by  the  con- 
trast of  "  death  reigning  through  the  one  "  with  the  vastly  exceeding 
fact,  that  "  they  who  receive  the  abundance  of  the  grace  and  of  the 
gift  of  justification"  do  so  subjectively  as  well  as  objectively,  and 
thus  pass  from  death  to  life,  and  to  reign  in  life  with  Christ  forever. 
The  formal  antithesis  would  have  been  that  life  shall  reign;  but,  as 
that  would  have  represented  life  as  in  the  same  relation  to  them  as 
death,  a  monarch  foreign  to  their  true  nature,  ruling  them  from 
without,  it  would  have  contradicted  the  very  nature  of  life  of  any 
kind,  which  is  necessarily  inherent  in  its  possessors,  so  that  it  can- 
not reign  or  discharge  any  function.  Hence  the  real  anthithesis  is, 
that  death,  the  intruded  foreigner,  reigns,  on  its  one  side,  and,  on  its 
other,  that,  not  this  life,  but  its  recipients  will  reign  in  it. 


346  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

§  196.    THE  WONDROUS  LITERARY  SKILL,  AS  WELL  AS  PROFOUND  MORAL 
INSIGHT  SHOWN  IN  THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  THIS  WHOLE  PASSAGE. 

Thus  these  three  verses,  15-17,  correlate  anthithetically  to  the 
three  preceding,  12-14,  3i^d  demonstrate  the  vast  excess  of  the  good 
provided  for  all,  and  communicated  to  all  who  receive  it,  by  Christ, 
over  the  evil  brought  on  all  by  Adam.  As  verses  13,  14  are  for  con- 
firmation of  verse  12,  so  verses  16,  17  are  for  confirmation  of  verse 
15.  Accordingly,  as  verse  13  is  to  confirm  the  statement  in  verse  12 
as  to  the  entrance  of  sin  into  the  world,  and  the  participation  of  all 
in  it,  by  the  one  transgression  of  Adam;  and  as  verse  14  is  to  con- 
firm the  statement  in  verse  12  as  to  the  fact  that  death  entered  into 
the  world  by  sin,  and  so  passed  unto  all  men,  because  all  sinned;  so 
verse  16  is  to  confirm  the  statement  in  verse  15,  that,  "  if  by  the  tres- 
pass of  the  one  the  many  died,  much  more  the  grace  of  God,  and  the 
gift  by  the  grace  of  the  one  man,  Jesus  Christ,  abound  unto  the  many." 
It  confirms  it  in  the  way  we  have  just  shown,  and  need  not  repeat. 
Verse  18  is  to  confirm  the  same  statement  in  verse  15  as  it  respects 
the  excess  of  efficacy  in  this  same  gracious  provision  by  the  same 
righteous  act  of  Christ  for  restoring  from  spiritual  death  also  to 
spiritual  life  and  a  destination  to  reign  in  it  forever,  which  restora- 
tion is  really  accomplished  in  all  "who  receive  \hQ  abundance  of  the 
grace  and  of  the  gift  of  justification  "  by  faith.  It  is  a  great  mis- 
take therefore  to  suppose  this  whole  passage  treats  of  justification 
only.  The  purpose  of  these  three  verses  is  to  show  what  they  all 
assert,  "  the  abundance  of  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  gift,  etc.," 
beyond  the  measure  of  the  death  brought  on  all  men  by  the  onfe 
trespass  of  Adam;  and  this  is  not  shown  by  what  is  done  for  men 
by  the  provision  for,  or  the  fact  of,  justification  only,  but  by  all  that 
is  done  for  them  by  Christ.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  grace  does  abound 
in  rescuing  from  spiritual  death  and  restoration  to  spiritual  life, 
issuing  in  eternal  life,  and  the  endless  reign  of  the  redeemed  in  it, 
to  quite  as  great  a  degree  as  in  justification.  Who  can  say  it  does 
not?  How  could  the  Apostle,  in  presenting  this  great  contrast, 
between  the  effects  of  Adam's  fall  and  of  Christ's  obedience,  omit 
this  effect  of  the  latter  any  more  than  justification?  Besides,  all  in 
verses  16,  17  is  said  of  the  grace  and  gift  as  for  all;  and  it  is  not  till 
in  this  verse  17  that  we  see  to  whom  they  produce  their  actual 
effects,  and  what  they  are.  It  is  the  so  common  jumbling  together 
of  all  the  consequences  of  sin — its  natural  effects,  its  appointed 
effect  of  bodily  death  with  those  of  the  other  doomings,  and  its 
positive  retributive  effect  of   inflicted  punishment — alike  into  its 


VERSES  i8  AND  ig.  347 

penalty,  which  causes  failure  to  see  the  real  meaning  of  verses  16, 
17,  especially  of  the  last  of  them,  and  also,  as  we  shall  see,  of  those 
which  follow. 

VERSES  18,  19. 

Verse  iS  says — ''So  then  as  through  one  trespass  the  jjidgment 
came  unto  all  men  to  condemnation;  even  so  through  one  'act  of 
righteousness'  the  free  gift  came  unto  all  men  to  justification  of  life." 
This  verse,  though  not  in  exact  form,  is,  in  fact,  the  apodosis  of 
verse  12.  The  Apostle,  having  shown  in  verses  15-17  the  great  dif- 
ferences between  the  effects  of  the  contrasted  acts  of  Adam  and  of 
Christ  in  and  upon  mankind,  shows  in  this  verse  that,  notwithstand- 
ing, there  is  an  essential  resemblance  between  the  acts  of  these  two 
heads  and  their  effects  in  and  upon  them  all.  Its  first  member 
is  substantially  a  restatement  of  the  first  member  of  verse  15,  and 
refers,  as  that  does,  to  the  statements  in  verse  12,  as  to  the  entrance 
of  death  into  the  world  by  the  sin  of  Adam,  and  its  consequent  uni- 
versality. Its  second  member  states  the  antithetic  resemblance  of 
the  one  righteous  act  of  Christ  and  its  effect  of  grace  unto  all  men, 
to  impart  "justification  of  life"  to  all  who  receive  it.  This  "justi- 
fication of  life"  is  the  antithesis  of  the  death  meant  in  Gen.  2:17, 
both  as  spiritual  and  as  liability  to  retributive  punishment;  for 
though,  in  necessary  order,  restoration  to  spiritual  life  immediately 
precedes  justification,  as  its  condition,  it  is  constantly  preserved  by 
and  through  it.  Thus  this  verse  sums  up  and  ends  the  contrasts, 
begun  in  verse  15,  between  Adam,  as  the  originator  by  his  one  trans- 
gression of  the  sin  and  death  of  the  whole  race,  and  Christ,  as  the 
originator  by  his  one  righteous  act,  of  spiritual  life  and  justification 
provisionally  for  all,  actually  for  all  who  receive  them.  What,  now, 
is  the  relation  of  verse  19  to  all  before  it  in  this  passage,  and  what 
is  its  meaning?  It  says — "For  as  through  the  one  man's  disobedi- 
ence the  many  were  made  sinners,  even  so  through  the  obedience 
of  the  one  shall  the  many  be  made  righteous."  In  verse  12,  the 
Apostle  stated  that  "death  entered  into  the  world  by  sin"  [Adam's], 
and  "passed  unto  all  men;"  and  he  confirmed  this  in  verse  14.  In 
verses  15-18,  he  set  forth  in  contrasts  the  provision  of  grace  by 
Christ  for  its  entire  removal  from  all;  so  that,  in  all  these  verses, 
14-18,  death  (the  condemnation  in  verses  16,  18  being  to  it  as  penal) 
is  the  only  matter  treated  of,  except  that  it  came  through  the  one 
sin  of  x\dam,  and  except  the  provision  by  Christ  for  its  removal.  It 
remained,  therefore,  to  treat  of  the  other  matter  stated  in  verse  12, 


348  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

and  confirmed  in  verse  14,  that  "through  one  man  sin  entered  into 
the  world,"  and  that  "all  sinned;"  and  to  show  the  resemblance 
between  Adam,  the  type,  and  Christ,  the  antit}-pe,  in  their  relation 
to  the  race,  as  its  two  heads,  in  respect  to  this  also.  This  he  does 
in  verse  19  by  showing  them  as  the  sources  and  causes  of  the  two 
contrasted  conditions  of  the  race  as  all  sinners  on  the  one  side,  and 
as  all  righteous  on  the  other — ixW  potent iallv,  and  all  who  receive  the 
abounding  provision  c.ctually.  On  the  one  side,  Adam  by  his  dis- 
obedience, on  the  other,  Christ  by  His  obedience  are  these  sources 
and  causes — the  first,  by  and  through  his  natural  relation  to  his  race; 
and  the  second,  by  and  through  His  supernatural  and  spiritual  rela- 
tion to  it.  The  effects  of  their  respective  acts  arc  both  subjective 
'and  objective.  The  subjective  efi'ect  of  Adam's  sin  was  the  inherited 
perversion  or  vitiation  of  nature,  involving  virtual  wrong  wills,  cer- 
tain to  sin  as  soon  as  they  act  morally;  and  its  objective  effect  was 
the  separation  it  brought  them  all  into  from  the  favor  and  fostering 
of  God  which  He  renders  to  all  the  unfallen.  The  subjective  effects 
of  the  obedience  of  Christ  are  the  rectification  of  their  wrong_ wills, 
of  children  that  die  before  they  enter  upon  a  gracious  probation, 
and  of  those  who  have  entered  upon  it,  however  actually  sinful,  and 
of  the  perversion  or  vitiation  of  their  nature,  so  as  to  make  them 
righteous  in  heart;  and  its  objective  effect  is  the  whole  provision  of 
grace,  not  only  to  secure  all  this  rectification,  but  their  justification. 
Both  the  effects  of  Adam's  disobedience  are  natural — that  is,  by 
propagation  of  his  damaged  nature,  and  therefore  come  necessarily 
to  all,  while  those  of  Christ's  obedience  are  spiritual  and  moral,  and 
therefore  cannot  be  realized  in  and  to  any  actual  sinner,  to  whom 
the  provision  is  offered,  otherwise  than  by  his  own  voluntary  accept- 
ance or  appropriatio7i  of  it  by  faith.  The  contrasted  objective  effects 
of  the  condemnation  and  the  justification  the  Apostle  presented  in 
verses  16-18  as  their  chief  points;  and,  from  what  we  have  shown, 
we  deem  it  certain  that  the  subjective  only  are  presented  in  verse 
19 — that  is,  on  tiie  one  side,  it  is  sin  itself,  not  its  penalty,  nor  other 
consequences,  and,  on  the  other  side,  it  is  subjective  righteousness, 
not  rescue  from  penalty,  nor  from  other  consequences  of  sin,  that  is 
intended.  The  designation  of  Adam's  sin  as  disobedience  to  God 
indicates  that  it  was  a  direct  rejection  of  His  authority  over  him,  a 
rebellion  against  His  declared  positive  prohibitory  command  for  the 
sake  of  his  own  personal  gratification,  an  act  of  pure  selfishness  in 
opposition  to  His  right  to  require  love  and  obedience,  so  that  it  was 
a  willful  wrong  against  Him,  intrinsically  unjust,  unrighteous,  and 


VERSES  i8  AND  ig.  349 

he  was  utterly  unrighteous  in  it.  Such  is  all  sin,  and  such  are  all 
sinners  in  it.  On  the  contrary,  the  designation  of  Christ's  action, 
particularly  His  righteous  act  of  making  the  atonement,  as  obedience 
to  God,  indicates  that  He  was  absolutely  free  from  selfishness,  and 
constantly  recognized  God's  authority  and  complied  with  His  will 
as  purely  just  and  righteous  in  requiring  His  loving  obedience  even 
to  the  sufferings  and  death  of  His  righteous  act  in  making  the  atone- 
ment for  our  sinful  race,  and  that  He  was  perfectly  righteous  in  His 
whole  life.  The  sense  of  verse  19  therefore  is,  that,  as,  through 
Adam's  disobedience,  the  many  [all,  except  Christ]  were  made 
virtual  sinners,  unrighteous,  as  already  explained,  and  sure  to  be 
actual  ones  as  soon  as  they  act  morally,  so  also  through  Christ's 
obedience  shall  the  many  [virtually,  or  as  far  as  full  provision  for 
their  restoration  goes]  be  made  [subjectively]  righteous.  As  far 
as  the  potencies  of  the  contrasted  actions  of  the  two  heads  are  con- 
cerned, they  are  parallel.  As  all  were  made  virtual  sinners  by 
Adam's  disobedience  without  actual  personal  sin  of  their  own;  and, 
as  no  one  becomes  an  actual  sinner  by  necessity,  but  by  his  own 
free  choice  only;  so  all  are  made  righteous  virtually  by  Christ's 
obedience  without  any  actual  personal  obedience  of  their  own;  and, 
as  no  one  becomes  an  actual  sinner  by  necessity,  but  only  by  his 
own  free  choice,  so  no  one  becomes  actually  righteous  by  necessity, 
but  only  by  his  own  free  choice.  The  parallel  is  not  impaired  nor 
changed  by  the  fact,  that,  in  the  one  case,  all  become  actual  sinners, 
who  live  to  act  morally,  while,  in  the  other,  only  some  become  actu- 
ally righteous,  and  some  do  not,  since  both  these  classes  do  so  by 
their  own  free  choice  without  any  necessity.  Hence,  neither  is  there 
any  basis  in  this  verse  for  Universalism,  nor  for  an  arbitrary  limi- 
tation of ''the  many"  from  rt/Zmen  to  the  elect  only.  "The  many" 
in  both  the  cases  are  the  same,  all.  The  future  tense  in  the  last 
member  of  this  verse  indicates  that  those  made  actually  righteous 
will  be  of  all  the  generations  to  come  till  the  end  of  the  race.  As 
Christ's  obedience  is  set  in  antithesis  to  Adam's  disobedience,  which 
was  an  act,  we  think  His  righteous  act  in  making  the  atonement  is 
specially  referred  to  by  the  term,  although  the  obedience  of  His 
whole  life  was  necessary  to  it.  As  to  the  distinction  between  His 
active  and  so-called  passive  obedience,  we  see  no  validity  in  it, 
since,  in  its  very  nature,  all  obedience  is  active.  The  will  of  God 
was  that  He  should  suffer  and  die  for  mankind;  and  He  actively 
obeyed  it  in  submitting  Himself  to  the  required  sufferings  and  death 
as  really  as  in  any  other  obedience  He  ever  rendered. 


350  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

§  197.    IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  THIS  WONDERFUL  PASSAGE, 

ROM.   5:12-19. 

We  have  now  completed  an  explanation  of  this  wondrous  pas- 
sage, which  is  like  the  ocean  in  its  great  depths,  and  like  highest 
mountain  ranges  in  its  heaven-piercing  heights.  With  marvellous 
brevity  and  skill,  it  presents  in  its  statements,  confirmations,  and 
contrasts  the  fundamental  and  perpetual  facts  and  sources  of  the 
whole  history  of  mankind,  and  of  God's  dealings  with  them  in  His 
government,  providence  and  grace  through  all  time  and  forever.  It 
is  a  specimen  of  viiiltum  in  parvo,  unparalleled  in  all  literature  known 
to  us,  and  of  never  surpassed  artistic  composition.  We  have  repeat- 
edly and  thoroughly  examined  the  views  of  it  and  of  all  its  parts 
of  the  principal  Commentators  of  all  sides  of  doctrine  from  Augus- 
tine down,  and  expressions  of  its  teachings  in  creeds  and  symbols 
from  the  earliest  presented  in  the  three  foremost  Church  Histories 
and  two  best  Histories  of  Doctrines,  and  several  Works  on  special 
or  general  subjects  involving  it;  and  wherein  we  agree  or  disagree 
with  any  or  all  of  them  competent  readers  will  discover  for  them- 
selves. With  high  appreciation  of,  and  much  indebtedness  to,  very 
many  who  have  labored  to  unfold  its  contents,  notwithstanding  any 
disagreement  their  views  may  have  with  ours,  we  venture,  with 
respectful  deference,  to  bring  these  results  of  our  own  investigation 
into  the  great  court  of  inquiry  and  revision,  with  the  hope  that  they 
may  contribute  to  those  final  unanimous  decisions  on  the  teachings 
of  this  passage,  to  which  all  true  believers  in  its  inspiration  and 
great  doctrinal  and  practical  importance  are  aspiring  and  tending. 
But  in  all  our  canvassing  of  this  passage  we  have  kept  constantly  in 
mind  the  main  end  for  which  we  entered  upon  i:,  which  was  to 
ascertain  and  exhibit  the  relations  of  the  incarnate  Christ  to  the 
race,  and  especially  to  the  Church;  and  to  us  it  is  a  demonstration 
that,  by  reason  of  the  race-constitution  of  mankind,  His  incarnation 
was  absolutely  necessary  to  any  redemptive  system — that  neither 
could  an  atonement  have  been  otherwise  possible,  nor  could  the 
facts,  truths,  motives,  influences,  and  agencies  involved  in  and  con- 
stitutive of  the  whole  system  and  the  highest  efficiency  of  its  grace 
have  been  otherwise  evolved  and  made  operative  upon  mankind. 
The  alternative  was — Christ  i?icarnate,  or  no  atonement,  no  facts, 
truths,  motives,  influences,  and  agencies  to  renovate  man,  no  salvation 
for  one  of  them.  But,  connected  with  this  main  end,  we  had  others, 
some  of  which  at  least  of  radical  importance  to  a  correct  under- 
Standing  of  the  definite  purpose  and  necessity  of  the  atonement,  as 


ROM.  £:i2-jg.  351 

the  supreme  and  fundamental  act  of  Christ,  without  which  there 
could  have  been  no  salvation  for  men,  no  emission  of  any  renewing 
grace  to  one  of  them.  As  far  as  this  passage  relates  to  Adam  and 
the  effects  of  his  sin  on  himself,  as  well  as  on  his  posterity,  it  is 
Paul's  inspired  showing  of  the  real  meaning  of  God's  warning  to 
him  of  the  result  if  he  should  disobey  His  command  not  to  eat  of 
the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil;  and  the  fact  that  those 
effects  so  largely  passed  on  to  his  posterity,  added  to  other  reasons 
which  have  been  shown,  proves  that  they  were  not  retributions  to 
him,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  word,  not  inflictions  on  him  and 
them  by  God,  but  the  natural  and  therefore  necessary  consequences 
of  his  sin.  Thus  our  position  is  confirmed  and  established  by  this 
passage,  that  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  arc  not  retributions, 
not  punitive  inflictions  by  Him  for  it,  not  social  in  design,  as  real 
retribution  is,  but  'sS.xvi^Xy  personal,  and  by  necessity  of  nature;  and 
consequently  atonement  can  have  no  direct  relation  to  them,  nor 
any  direct  effect  to  set  them  aside  or  arrest  them.  But  sin,  which  is 
selfishness,  is  against  God  and  the  universal  and  eternal  moral  society, 
is  violation  of  the  universal  and  eternal  law  of  that  society  and  of 
God  in  it  and  its  Ruler  and  Guardian,  which  by  its  quality  of  jus- 
tice is  purely  social,  so  that  true  retribution  is  necessarily  social; 
and,  therefore,  among  the  natural  consequences  of  Adam's  and  all 
sin  is  always  an  incurred  liability  to  and  demand  for  real  retribution 
from  God  himself  according  the  measure  of  ill-desert  as  He  sees  it, 
which  must  be  met  and  removed  provisionally  for  Adam  and  all 
sinners,  or  they  must  all  eternally  suffer  it.  This  is  confirmed  and 
certified  in  this  passage  by  the  fact  that,  in  all  His  action  for  man, 
the  chief  part  was  His  "  act  of  righteousness"  Qkm'KJua^^  of  ethi- 
cal Justice  to  God  and  the  universal  holy  society  for  sinners,  as 
a  basis  for  their  justification.  Besides  these  points,  we  think  our 
retrieval  of  Gen.  3:16-19  from  the  distortion  of  turning  its  doom- 
ings  into  sentencing  Adam  and  Eve  to  suffer  what  was  warned 
against  in  2:17,  and  our  exposition  of  Paul's  plain  development  of 
its  meaning  in  Rom.  8:17-23  are  of  vast  importance  both  theolog- 
ically and  practically — especially  practically  in  a  world  so  full  of 
suffering  under  the  doomings  of  God,  providential  and  disciplin- 
ary, and  so  needing  the  consolatory  explanations  of  them  by  the 
inspired  Apostle. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

Atonements  of  the  animal  sacrifices  of  the  Levitical  Law ;  the 
origin  and  general  use  of  such  sacrifices  among  the  nations;  and  the 
relation  of  those  of  the  Levitical  Law  to  the  Atonement  and  all  the 
relations  of  Christ  to  mankind^  to  God,  and  to  the  universal  moral 
society. 

§  198.    NOTHING  IN  ALL  GOD'S   DOINGS    TOWARDS    MANKIND  ARDIIRARY 

OR  CAPRICIOUS. 

We  have  all  along  proceeded  on  the  basis  that  God  does  noth- 
ing from  a  merely  arbitrary  or  capricious  will,  but  correlates  and 
adjusts  all  His  plans,  measures,  and  courses  respecting  mankind  to 
His  own  and  their  moral  natures  and  relations;  and  we  hold  that  He 
did  so  in  the  matter  of  the  atonement  no  less  than  of  His  legis- 
lation and  government.  In  our  remaining  investigations  of  this 
great  subject,  we  will  pursue  the  same  course,  strictly  avoiding  every 
assumption  or  position  included  among  or  kindred  to  the  following: 
— That,  because  God  is  omnipotent,  He  might  have  done  so  or  so — 
might  have  made  moral  beings  without  natural  freedom  of  will  or 
power  to  sin;  under  no  moral  law  or  government,  or  one  differing 
to  any  degree,  even  to  opposition,  from  that  which  they  are  under, 
as  to  either  the  precept,  or  the  penalty,  or  both  of  the  law,  or  as  to 
the  natural  consequences  of  obedience  or  disobedience  to  it,  even  to 
contrariety  of  the  actual  ones,  or  to  none  at  all; — that,  consequently, 
not  the  nature  of  God  and  of  other  moral  beings,  but  His  mere 
arbitrary  will  makes  any  action  what  we  call  right  or  wrong,  good 
or  bad,  or  moral  at  all,  while  it  could  have  made  it  directly  the 
contrary;  and  that  this  will  determines  all  about  what  the  desert  of 
reward  or  of  punishment  of  either  kind  of  action  shall  be,  or  whether 
there  shall  be  any  at  all  of  either  kind,  or  whether  He  will  either 
reward  or  punish; — that,  consequently  again,  though  mankind  have 
broken  this  arbitrary  law  and  incurred  liability  to  suffer  its  threat- 


kEDEMPTIVE  plan:  355 

ened  penalty,  there  is  nevertheless  no  necessity  for  their  punishment, 
if  only  they  will  repent,  since,  by  the  same  arbitrary  will.  He  can 
set  the  penalty  aside  by  simply  forgiving  them; — and,  finally,  that 
there  was  no  necessity  for  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God,  for  an 
atonement,  for  any  of  the  provisions  of  the  redemptive  system,  for 
a  Divinely  inspired  revelation  of  the  truths,  facts,  and  motive  cer- 
tainties that  system  involves,  in  order  to  restore  sinners  to  their 
sundered  relations  to  God,  to  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins,  to  their 
moral  renovation,  or  to  anything  else  requisite  to  their  full  retrieval 
and  everlasting  blessedness.  For  any  holding  these  and  such  like 
notions  to  talk  of  any  real  justice,  righteousness,  holiness,  or  even  of 
mercy  or  grace  as  related  to  these,  is  only  an  imposture  of  words 
voided  of  their  true  meaning.  So  to  talk  is  logically  to  destroy  all 
basis  for  judging  or  criticising  anything  in  God's  course  towards 
mankind;  for  what  absurdity  it  is  to  criticise  the  confessed'y  arbi- 
trary or  capricious!  Is  there  any  standard,  are  there  any  princi- 
ples, when  arbitrariness  is  assumed  as  the  basis  of  God's  action 
throughout,  with  which  to  compare  and  judge  concerning  it,  and  by 
which  it  can  be  pronounced  right  or  wrong,  good  or  evil  ?  Hence, 
the  holders  of  such  notions  are  constantly  fluctuating,  assuming  and 
rejecting,  affirming  and  denying  essentially  the  same  things  concern- 
ing God,  forgetting  that  He  asked  Israel,  through  His  prophet, 
"Are  not  my  ways  equal?" — that  is,  equitable,  just,  right,  accord- 
ing to  the  law  as  the  standard  of  all  moral  action?  In  opposition 
to  all  such  superficial,  subversive  notions,  we  steadfastly  adhere  to 
the  position,  that,  as  the  moral  nature  of  God  and  man  contains  and 
affirms  the  law  with  its  sanctions  of  positive  reward  for  unfailing 
obedience,  and  positive  punishment  for  disobedience,  so  not  only 
does  that  nature,  containing  and  issuing  the  law,  approve  the  sub- 
stitution of  the  sufferings  and  death  of  God's  incarnate  Son  for  those 
deserved  by  human  sinners,  but  demands  it  and  all  involved  in  it  on 
the  part  of  God.  We  therefore  proceed  to  consider  in  what  the 
atonement  consisted  as  taught  in  the  Word  of  God. 

§  199.    WHEN  THE    REDEMPTIVE    PLAN  WAS  DEVISED,  AND  WHAT  IT 

INCLUDED. 

The  plan  of  redemption  was  devised  by  God,  along  with  that 
of  creation,  for  the  retrieval  of  man  foreseen  as  fallen,  and  to  begin 
development  and  effect  immediately  after  the  fall  of  the  first  pair. 
It  included  His  sparing  them  and  in  them  their  race,  and  putting 
them  under  a  new  and  gracious  probation,  with  the  hope  inspired 


354  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

by  the  promise  of  the  serpent-bruising  seed  of  the  woman  in  con- 
nection with  the  doomings  of  Gen.  3:16-19.  It  included  His  whole 
providential  course  with  the  race  to  the  end  of  time.  It  was  special- 
ized in  His  calling  Abraham,  in  His  promises  to  him,  and  in  His 
covenant  with  him  and  his  seed,  both  natural  and  spiritual,  includ- 
ing Christ;  and  further  in  choosing  Jacob's  descendants  to  be  His 
peculiar  theocratic  people,  among  and  through  whom  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  advent  of  the  promised  "seed"  of  the  woman  and 
of  Abraham;  and  still  further  in  raising  up  Moses  for  all  his  work, 
especially  to  be  the  medium  through  whom  to  give  His  law,  moral, 
civil,  and  ceremonial,  as  a  dispensation  to  that  people,  not  only  for 
all  its  effects  to  them  till  Christ  should  come,  but  for  its  subsequent 
effects  to  all  people  and  nations  which  should  receive  the  Gospel 
till  th^  race  ends.  It  included  His  whole  course  with  them  to  their 
final  dispersion,  yet  in  continuance;  and  His  sending  them  all  their 
illustrious  succession  of  inspired  prophets  and  writers  to  declare  to 
them  His  will,  threatenings  and  truth,  and  to  furnish  the  whole 
series  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  They  were  to  be  instructed  and 
trained  intellectually,  morally,  theologically,  religiously,  and  in 
sacred  conceptions  and  language  down  their  generations,  not  only 
for  their  own  benefit,  but,  in  order  that,  after  Christ  should  accom- 
plish His  earthly  mission,  when  the  Gospel  should  be  promulgated, 
its  truths  and  facts,  by  the  help  of  all  these,  could  be  easily  taught 
and  made  effective  wheresoever  it  should  be  made  known.  As  to 
the  Jews,  down  all  their  generations,  while  they  could  be  directly 
taught  their  duties  to  God  and  man  by  precepts  and  prohibitions, 
they  could  not,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  so  taught  the  great 
social  relations  between  men  as  sinners  and  God  as  t/ic  rigJtieous 
moral  Ruler,  nor  any  of  the  peculiar  facts  and  truths  involved  in  the 
eternal  plan,  "the  mystery  which  was  hid  from  ages  and  genera- 
tions," which  was  to  be  and  was  made  manifest  in  and  through 
Christ  "in  the  fullness  of  time."  They  could  be  taught  these  only 
in  a  rudimental,  shadowy  way  by  the  representations  or  language  of 
symbols,  embodied  in  their  history,  in  persons  somehow  prominent 
and  public  officially  or  otherwise,  in  actions  of  a  public  kind,  and  in 
religious  institutions,  rites,  ceremonies,  functionaries  and  instru- 
ments— all  of  which,  while  incorporated  or  occurring  in  their  con- 
stituted organization  and  their  general  history,  represented  more  or 
less  essential  principles  and  features  of,  and  were  prefigurations, 
signs,  resemblances,  or  types  of,  "the  good  things  to  come"  in  the 
great  antitypical  realizations  of  the  plan  ot  Christ  and  of  His  peo- 


ATONEMENT.  355 

pie.  These  symbolizations  were,  therefore,  in  their  very  nature, 
also  prophecies  of  what  was  to  be  unfolded  in  the  glorious  future; 
and,  generally  speaking,  it  can  be  truly  said  that  that  selected  race 
were  a  typical  people,  their  country  was  typical,  and  all  God's 
arrangements  for  their  government.  His  course  towards  them,  and 
His  religious  institutions  for  them  abounded  in  types  and  shadows, 
representing,  doubtless,  as  perfectly  as  possible,  the  great  realities 
to  come.  Pre-eminently  is  this  true  of  the  whole  sacrificial  system 
of  the  Levitical  Law,  which  was  specially  the  rhi/d- conductor  to  a 
teacher  to  lead  men  to  Christ.  It  is,  therefore,  of  great  importance 
for  a  clear  understanding  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  to  ascer- 
tain the  real  meanings  of  the  teachings  of  this  law — of  its  typical 
symbols  and  representations. 

§  200.    MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  WORD   ATONEMENT NOUN  AND 

VERB. 

The  word,  atonement,  occurs  in  our  old  version  of  the  New 
Testament  only  once,  in  Rom.  5:11,  where  it  is  an  erroneous  trans- 
lation of  a  Greek  word  which  means  reconciliation;  but  is  corrected 
in  the  New  Version.  In  the  Old  Testament  version,  the  verb,  to 
atone,  and  the  noun,  atonement,  are  chiefly  used  to  translate  the 
Hebrew  verb,  "IC^;  ^^d  noun,  n")D2-  This  Hebrew  verb  sig- 
nifies: I.  To  cover,  to  overlay,  which  is  probably  its  original  mean- 
ing; 2.  To  cover  over  sins — that  is,  to  forgive,  to  pardon;  3.  As 
causative,  to  cause  to  forgive,  or  to  obtain  pardon — that  is,  (a)  to 
expiate,  to  atone  for,  an  offense;  (b)  to  make  expiation  or  atonement 
for  an  offender  or  transgressor,  to  free  him  from  guilt;  (c)  to  appease, 
to  placate,  to  propitiate  the  one  offended.  The  verb  and  noun  occur 
154  times.  In  13  instances,  it  appears  to  refer  directly  to  its  orig- 
inal meaning,  to  cover;  in  12,  to  the  second  meaning,  to  forgive;  and  in 
129,  to  the  third  meaning,  to  make  atonement.  Of  these  last,  80  are 
rendered  atonement  in  our  [the  old  version,  and  we  suppose  in  the 
new],  and  49  by  nouns  and  verbs  of  a  cognate  signification.  Its 
customary  meaning  is,  to  make  atonement,  to  expiate.  As  a  verb,  it 
means,  to  cover,  or  to  cause  to  cover,  sin;  as  a  noun,  it  means,  a  cover 
for  sin  or  guilt.  In  his  volume  of  "  Select  Discoveries,"  Boston, 
1S51,  pp.  41,42,  S.  E.  Dwight  gives  the  following  very  valuable 
foot-note,  which  it  doubtless  cost  him  much  patient  labor  to  pre- 
pare: "As  a  verb,  in  the  following  passages,  it  is  translated,  to  make 
an  atonement.  Ex.  29:33,  39,  37;  30:10,  10,  15,16;  32:30;  Lev.  1:4; 
4:20,26,31,35;  5:6,   10,   13,   16,   18;   6:7;   7:7;  8:34;  9:7,7;   10:17; 


356  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

12:7,8;  14:18-21,29,31,53;  15:15,30;  16:6,  10,11,16-18,24,27, 
30,  32-34;  17:11,  11;  19:22;  Num.  5:8;  6:11;  8:12,  19,  21;  15:25, 
28,28;  16:46,47;  25:13;  28:22,  30;  29:5;  31:50;  II.  Sam.  21:3;  I. 
Chron.  6:49;  II.  Chron.  29:24;  Neh.  10:33. 

As  a  noun,  it  is  rendered  atonement  in  Ex.  29:36;  30:10,  16; 
Lev.  23:27,  28;  25:9;  Num.  5:8;  29:11. 

As  a  verb,  it  is  used  in  a  similar  sense  in  Num.  35:33;  I.  Sam. 
3:14;  Ez.  43:20,  26,  where  it  is  translated,  to  purge,  to  cleanse:  in 
Lev.  6:30;  8:15;  16:20;  Ez.  45:15,  17,  20;  Dan.  9:24,  where  it  is 
rendered  to  reconcile,  to  make  reconciliation,  but  should  be  rendered 
to  make  atonement:  in  Gen.  32:20;  Prov.  16:14;  Ez.  16:63,  where 
it  is  rendered,  to  pacify,  to  appease,  because  an  atonement,  an  expia- 
tion, ^xocviXQ.?,  forgiveness,  ox  pacifies  anger. 

As  a  noun,  it  is  used  in  a  similar  sense  in  Num.  35:31,  32,  where 
it  is  rendered  satisfaction:  in  Ex.  21:30,  where  it  is  rendered  a  sum 
of  money,  i.  e.,  a  fine,  as  giving  satisfaction  for  an  injury:  in  Ex. 
30:12;  Job  33:24;  36:18;  Ps.  49:7;  Prov.  6:35;  ii:2>;  21:18;  Is. 
43:3,  where  it  is  rendered  a  ransom,  and  in  all  but  the  two  last, 
denotes  a  ransom  for  the  life,  because  an  atonement  released  ox  ran- 
somed ixoxw  punishment:  in  Ex.  25:17-22;  30:6;  31:7;  35:11;  37:6-9; 
39:35;  40:18;  Lev.  16:2,  2,  13-15,  15;  Num.  7:89,  where  it  is  ren- 
dered (Sept.  IXaarypwv)  mercy  seat,  i.  e.,  the  place  of  expiation,  or 
of  receiving  pardon:  and  in  Amos  9:1  (1inD3  by  mistake  for 
n*1D3)>  where  it  is  rendered  altar,  or  that  on  7vhich  the  atoning 
sacrifice  is  offered.''  These  Discourses  possess  very  great  merit  in 
many  respects,  although  not  according  with  our  view  of  the  nature 
of  the  atonement. 

With  these  meanings  of  the  Hebrew  verb  and  noun  before  us, 
we  are  prepared  to  examine  the  Levitical  Law,  to  ascertain  what, 
according  to  it,  constituted  a  cover  or  atonement  for  sin.  But 
there  are  four  cases  of  a  cover  or  atonement  for  sin  without  the 
sacrifice  of  animal  life,  which  we  must  first  dispose  of. 

§  201.      FOUR    CASES  OF  THE  USE    OF    THE  WORD  ATONEMENT  WHEN  IT 
DOES  NOT  MEAN  ANIMAL  SACRIFICES. 

Three  of  these  are  legislative,  one  merely  a  recorded  occur- 
rence. In  two  of  them,  the  atonement  was  made  in  money.  The 
first  is  that  required  in  Ex.  21:28-30.  If  an  ox,  known  by  his  owner 
to  push  with  his  horn,  and  yet  not  kept  in  by  him,  killed  a  man  or 
woman,  the  general  law  required  the  ox  to  be  stoned  and  his  owner 
to  be  put  to  death.     But  in  certain  cases,  the  owner  might  pay  a 


THE  WORD  ATONEMENT.  357 

sum  of  money  as  a  ransom,  cover,  for  his  life.  If  it  was  a  servant 
that  was  killed,  the  fine  went  to  his  master.  This  atonement  was 
not  to  God,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  inquiry.  The  second 
case  of  atonement  in  money  is  found  in  Ex.  30:12-16,  and  acted 
upon  in  Num.  31:48-54.  When  a  census  of  the  Israelites  was  taken, 
every  man  of  twenty  years  old  or  above  was  required  to  give  half  a 
shekel  as  "  a  ransom,  a  cover,  for  his  soul  unto  the  Lord,"  "  an  offer- 
ing unto  the  Lord  to  make  an  atonement,  cover,  for  their  souls," 
"  that  there  be  no  plague  among  them,  when  thou  numberest  them." 
The  word  occurs /^«r  times  in  the  passage  in  Ex.  This  shekel  was 
called  the  cover  or  atonement  money  of  the  children  of  Israel,  and 
was  "  appointed  for  the  service  of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congrega- 
tion." It  was  thus  virtually  the  same  as  the  sacrifices  furnished  by 
it,  which  made  atonement  for  the  lives  of  the  people,  and  so  does 
not  conflict  with  the  position  that  the  Levitical  Law  required  tlie 
substitution  of  a  life  for  an  atonement.  The  third  legislative  case 
of  atonement  without  the  actual  sacrifice  of  animal  life  is  in  Lev. 
5:1-14,  where  the  four  offenses  of  not  disclosing  the  truth  when 
adjured  as  a  witness,  of  touching  a  carcass,  of  touching  the  unclean- 
ness  of  a  man,  and  of  designedly  not  doing  what  one  had  sworn  to 
do  are  prescribed  for.  If  the  offender  in  any  of  these  ways  was  too 
poor  to  bring  a  lamb,  or  even  two  turtle-doves  or  two  young  pigeons, 
he  was  required  to  bring,  instead,  the  tenth  part  of  an  ephah  of  fine 
flour  for  a  sin-offering.  The  priest  took  a  handful  of  it,  and  burnt 
it  on  the  altar  as  a  sin-offering,  and  made  an  atonement,  cover,  for 
him;  and  his  sin  was  forgiven.  This  flour  was  substituted  for  the 
regular  sin-offering  of  an  animal  sacrifice  on  account  of  his  extreme 
poverty,  as  mercy  on  God's  part;  and,  because  it  was  a  substitute 
for  that,  it  does  not  conflict  with  the  fact  that  atonement  could  not 
be  made  to  God  without  an  animal  sacrifice.  T\\q  fourth  case,  not 
legislative,  but  an  incidental  occurrence,  is  in  Num.  16:41-50.  The 
whole  congregation  of  Israel  murmured  against  Moses  and  Aaron,  on 
account  of  the  destruction  of  Korah  and  his  company,  whtch  caused 
the  anger  of  the  Lord  to  be  kindled  against  them,  so  that  thousands 
of  them  were  falling  under  it.  To  arrest  the  destruction,  Moses  said 
to  Aaron,  "  Take  thy  censer,  and  put  fire  therein  from  off  the  altar, 
and  lay  incense  thereon,  and  carry  it  quickly  unto  the  congregation, 
and  make  atonement  for  them:  for  there  is  wrath  gone  out  from  the 
Lord;  the  plague  is  begun."  Aaron  did  so,  and  made  atonement 
for  them,  and  he  stood  between  the  living  and  the  dead;  and  the 
plague  was  stayed.     In  this  terrible  emergency,  instead  of  delaying 


358  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

to  go  thrc)\i<.;"h  a  regular  sin-olTering,  Moses,  doubtless  Divinely  im- 
pelled, (lirected  Aaron  to  substitute  the  censer  and  incense  for  it; 
and  God  mercifully  accepted  the  substitution.  ///  form,  the  case 
was  exceptional;  in  spirit,  it  was  not  a  departure  from  the  nde  of 
the  law,  and  in  no  way  conflicts  with  it.  t)f  the  last  three  cases, 
Dr.  S.  E.  Dwight  says:  '•'  They  are  all  the  cases  which  I  have  been 
able  to  find,  in  which  it  can  be  even  supposed  that  an  atonement 
was  made  to  God  without  the  sacrifice  of  life."  "These  cases,  I 
think,  will  satisfy  no  one  that  the  Levitical  Atonement  did  not  imply 
the  substitution  of  a  life."  We  have  profited  by  his  examination  of 
these  and  the  two  folFowing  cases. 

There  are  tv/o  instances  of  atonement  recorded  as  made  by  the 
sacrifice  of  human  life.  The  first  is  in  Num.  25:1-13.  In  that 
case,  when  Moses  called  on  the  judges  of  Israel  to  slay  every  one  his 
man  of  those  guilty  of  whoredom  with  the  Moabitish  women,  Phin- 
eas,  grandson  of  Aaron,  rose  up  and  took  a  spear  in  his  hand,  and 
went  after  an  Israelitish  man  who  brought  a  Midianitish  woman 
into  the  camp,  and  thrust  them  both  through;  and  the  plague  was 
stayed,  after  twenty-four  thousand  had  died.  And  God  blessed 
him,  "  because  he  was  jealous  for  his  Crod,  and  made  atonement  for 
the  children  of  Israel."  Taking  the  lives  of  these  guilty  persons 
was  the  atonement;  and  they  were  recognized  by  God  as  substitutes 
for  the  rest  of  the  yet  living  people.  The  other  case  is  that  of  II. 
Sam.  21:1-9.  It  was  an  atonement  made,  not  to  God,  but  to  the 
Gibeonites,  who  themselves  sacrificed,  as  anathemas,  seven  of  Saul's 
sons,  "because  he  slew  the  Gibeonites,"  in  violation  of  the  treaty 
made  with  them  by  Joshua.  It  v/as  a  public  punishment  for  a  great 
public  crime;  and,  after  it,  the  famine  which  had  oppressed  the  land 
for  the  crime  was  stayed.  While  these  two  cases  exhibit  the  general 
nature  of  atonement,  the  latter  very  feebly,  yet,  in  them,  the  word 
is  not  used  in  its  proper  Levitical  import. 

§  202.    SCRIPTURAL  STATEMENT  OF  WHAT    THE  ATONEMENT  OF  AN  ANI- 
MAL   SACRIFICE  CONSISTE-D  IN. 

In  Lev.  17:11,  we  have  a  direct,  definite  statement  of  what  con- 
stituted the  atonement  made  by  sacrificing  animals,  as  required  by 
the  law:  •"  For  the  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood:  and  I  have  given 
it  to  you  upon  the  altar  to  make  atonement  for  your  souls:  for  it  is 
the  blood  that  maketh  atonement  by  reason  of  the  life."  Fair- 
bairn,*  commenting  on  this  passage,  says:  "The  grand  reason  for 
(*)  See  his  Typology  ot  Scripture,  Vol.  IL,  pp.  304-306— fifth  edition. 


ANIMAL  SACRIFICE. 


?S9 


the  singular  place  which,  in  the  hand-writing  of  Moses,  is  assigned 
to  sacrifice  by  blood,  is  expressed  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
where  it  is  said,  that,  '  without  shedding  of  blood,  there  is  no  remis- 
sion,' consequently  no  peace  or  fellowship  with  God  for  the  sinner." 
''''  *  *  "And  the  full  and  correct  import  of  this  passage  [Lev. 
17:11]  is  to  the  following  effect:  'You  must  n  t  eat  the  blood, 
because  God  has  appointed  it  as  the  means  of  atonement  for  your 
sins.  But  it  is  the  means  of  atonement,  as  the  bearer  of  the  soul. 
It  is  not,  therefore,  the  matter  of  the  blood  that  atones,  but  the  soul 
or  life  which  resides  in  it;  so  that  the  soul  of  the  offered  victim 
atones  for  the  soul  of  the  man  who  offers  it.'  The  passage,  indeed, 
is  intended  simply  to  provide  an  answer  to  two  questions:  Why  they 
should  not  eat  blood?  viz.,  because  the  blood  was  appointed  by  God 
for  making  atonement.  And,  why  should  blood  have  been  ap- 
pointed for  this  purpose?  viz.,  because  the  soul  or  life  is  there,  and 
hence  is  most  suitably  taken  for  the  soul  or  life  of  man  forfeited  by 
sin.  This  is  also  the  only  sense  of  the  passage  that  can  be  gram- 
matically justified;  "  which  he  shows. 

§  203.    THOSE  SACRIFICES  AND  THE    THEOCRATIC    GOVERNMENT  07 
GOD  OVER  ISRAEL  FOR    THEM    ONLY  IN  THIS  WORLD. 

Not  only  all  the  different  kinds  of  sacrifices  presented  at  the 
altar,  but  other  things  not  presented  there,  were  called  by  the  gen- 
eral name  of  offerings  (corbanim).  These  included  the  ransom- 
money  which  furnished  supplies  ior  the  atonement-services  of  the 
sanctuary  (Ex.  38:25;  30:16),  and  other  occasional  offerings  for  the 
same  end  (Num.  7:3;  31:50),  and  contributions  for  the  support  of 
the  ministers  of  the  sanctuary — tithes,  first-fruits,  and  free-will 
offerings.  Corban  literally  signifies  a  gift,  and  anything  solemnly 
dedicated  to  a  sacred  use;  and  all  these  corl>a?iim  were  required  or 
encouraged  by  God  from  Israel  to  support  and  give  sacred  import- 
ance in  their  estimation  to  His  house,  which  he  had  placed  among 
them  for  their  supreme,  perpetual  good.  That  good  consummately 
depended  on  the  sacrificial  offerings  to  Him  at  His  altar,  the  blood, 
or  the  soul  in  the  blood,  of  which  was  given  by  Him  expressly  to 
make  atonement  to  Him  for  their  souls  forfeited  by  sin.  These 
offerings  were  the  burnt-the  sin-the  guilt-or  trespass-the  peace- 
offerings,  and  the  meal-offering  as  a  supplement  to  the  last  two.  All 
these  offerings  were  enjoined  on  the  Israelites  as  the  theocratic  peo- 
ple, under  the  special,  temporal,  theocratic  government  of  God  over 
them,  and  not  as  under  His  universal  and  eternal  moral  government. 


360  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

The  whole  Levitical  Law,  with  its  retributions,  especially  of  punish- 
ment, its  atonements  for  violations  of  it,  its  forgivenesses,  its  purifi- 
cations and  cleansings,  and  its  priests,  while  based  on  and  adapted 
to  the  eternal  moral  law  and  government,  as  far  as  it  related  to 
these,  was  only  for  that  theocratic  people  in  their  temporal,  organic 
relations  to  each  other,  and  to  God  as  their  Theocratic  Ruler  ///  this 
world;  and,  therefore,  while  it  was  a  real  law  and  administration 
for  them,  it  was,  throughout,  so  devised  and  adapted  as  to  prefigure 
and  be  typical  of  Christ  in  His  redeeming  mission  and  of  its  effects 
in  time  and  forever,  as  related  to  God's  universal  and  eternal  law 
and  government  over  mankind  as  related  to  Him  and  the  universal 
society.  In  itself  that  Levitical  system  never  effected  the  forgive- 
ness, spiritual  purification,  and  salvation  of  any  one,  as  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  distinctly  shows,  but,  by  its  typical  prefiguration  of 
the  real  redemptive  system,  it  doubtless  contributed  to  secure  these 
results  to  great  multitudes  of  that  peculiarized  people  until  Christ 
came.  Considered  in  itself,  apart  from  its  typical  character,  the 
inspired  teaching  is  clearly  to  the  contrary.*  The  theocratic  law 
and  government  were  confined  to  that  people,  in  tliis  world,  and  were 
only  for  a  time;  and  the  forgivenesses  secured  by  its  sacrifices  were 
only  for  sins  as  against  that  law,  not  as  against  His  eternal  law, 
though  all  who  truly  repented  of  them  as  against  this,  as  well  as  that, 
were  also  forgiven  for  them  as  against  this  on  the  ground  of  the 
atonement  of  Christ  prefigured  by  these  sacrifices  (Rom.  3:25;  Heb. 
9:15).  As  said  elsewhere,  that  people,  during  that  time,  excepted. 
no  others  ever  were  or  will  be  under  that  law  and  government,  but 
all,  that  people  included,  always  have  been  and  will  be  under  God's 
eternal  law  and  government,  modified  in  application  to  them  in  this 
life  by  the  one  great  atonement  of  Christ  for  their  sins,  to  rescue 
them  from  subjection  to  the  penalties  of  this  eternal  law  in  connec- 
tion with  their  restoration  to  righteousness  by  the  means  it  secured, 
and  on  the  conditions  the  Gospel  prescribes.  This  law  and  govern- 
ment and  the  atonement  for  sinners  against  them,  therefore,  no  more 
pertain  to  that  people  than  to  all  other  races  and  nations.  Under- 
standing readers  can  thus  see  the  necessity  and  reason  for  our  course 
in  the  first  part  of  this  Work,  in  investigating  and  unfolding  what  the 
universal  law  and  its  real  retributions  are,  especially  in  the  clear 
light  of  all  that  Scripture  teaches  concerning  them,  but  also  in  the 
light  of  consciousness  and  the  known  action  and  manifestations  of 


(*)  Rom.  3:20;  5:20;  7:8,  13;  Gal.  3:19,  21,  23.     Respecting  the  Levitical  sac- 
rifices, see  Heb.  7:18,  19;  9:9,  10;  io:i,  4-1 1,  and  numerous  other  places. 


THE  SIN-OFFERING.  361 

the  common  conscience  of  mankind,  and  their  moral  intuitions  and 
judgments. 

§  204.    THE  SIN-OFFERING. 

In  considering  the  animal  sacrifices,  we  begin  with  the  sin-offer- 
ing. This  related  to  sin  as  against  God,  a  direct  violation  of  His  will 
and  authority;  and,  therefore,  while  it  was  an  actual  expiation  or 
atonement  to  Him  for  violators  of  the  theocratic  law  in  the  ways 
specified,  it  was  the  leading  prefiguratiou  of  the  great  expiation  or 
atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  against  God  by  the  offer- 
ing and  sacrifice  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Its  special  relation  to 
sin  in  this  radical  aspect  is  indicated  by  its  distinctive  Hebrew 
name,  n^^COH,  chattah,  the  exact  rendering  of  which  is  sin.  Bush 
says  that,  in  the  Septuagint  version  of  the  Pentateuch,  this  word 
is  translated  by  the  Greek  word  duapna,  sin,  in  more  than  80 
places,  in  all  which  it  is  rendered  sin-offering  in  our  English  version; 
and  Dwight  says  that  in  that  version  of  the  O.  T.,  dfiapna,  in  at 
least  114  instances,  denotes  a  sin-offering.  It  was  never  applied  to 
any  sacrifice  before  the  time  of  Moses  (Ex.  29:14),  and  is  entirely 
peculiar  to  the  Levitical  Law,  the  great  end  of  which  was  to  arouse 
a  consciousness  of  "  the  sinfulness  of  sin,"  and  of  the  necessity  for 
its  expiation,  as  represented  in  that  law,  in  order  to  the  sinner's 
acceptance  by  God.  It  was  offered  when  persons  committed  acts 
of  sin  specified,  or  were  in  conditions  resulting  from,  connected  with, 
or  implying  it,  as  the  following  specifications  show: — 

I.  When  any  committed  the  following  aggravated  sins: — (i) 
When  a  witness  was  adjured,  or  put  under  oath,  to  disclose  the 
truth,  and  yet  kept  it  back  (Lev.  5:1).  2.  When  one  swore  rashly 
(Lev.  5:4).  3.  When  any  one,  the  High  Priest,  a  ruler,  or  a  private 
person,  sinned  against  any  of  the  commandments  of  the  Lord,  doing 
what  ought  not  to  be  done  against  any  of  them,  7/ n wittingly,  or 
through  inconsiderate  error.^  4.  When,  on  the  great  day  of  the 
yearly  atonement,  the  High  Priest  made  an  atonement  for  himself 
and  his  house  (Lev.  16:3,  6,  11-14).  5.  When  consecrations  were 
made,  as  they  implied  separation  from  sin  or  its  taint  to  holy 
services  or  uses: — (i)  Of  the  priests  (Ex.  29:10-14).  (2)  Of  the 
altar  and   the   tabernacle   (Ex.   29:36,  37;    30:10;    Lev.  16:15-19). 


(*)  See  Acts  3:17;  Eph.  4:18;  I.  Pet.  1:14.  Lev.  4:2,  13,  22-35;  Num.  15: 
27-29.1 

(f )  See  Magee  on  Atonement  and  Sacrifice,  Vol.  I.,  Essay  XXXVII.,  pp.  239- 
244,  and  note  on  pp.  241-243.  Outram,  Dis.  I.,  Chap.  XIII.,  pp.  152-154.  Fair- 
bairu  on  Typology,  etc.,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  327-329. 


362  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

6.  When  one  was  cured  or  recovered  from  a  disease: — (i)  From 
leprosy  (Lev.  14-19,  31).  (2)  From  a  running  issue  (Lev.  15:14, 
15,  29,  30).  (3)  When  a  woman  was  purified  after  child-birth  (Lev. 
12:6,  7).  "The  language  of  the  law,  in  these  cases,  taught  them 
to  regard  diseases  as  consequences  of  sin;  and  the  fact,  that, 
when  one  recovered  from  a  peculiarly  painful  and  defiling  one, 
God  required  him  to  present,  besides  a  thank-offering,  a  sin-offering 
also,  to  make  atonement  for  his  sins,  most  impressively  reminded 
him,  that  he  deserved  death  at  the  hands  of  God.  That  the  Jews 
regarded  it  in  this  light  is  obvious,  not  only  from  the  language  of 
Scripture,  but  from  the  common  testimony  of  their  distinguished 
writers"*  (Dwight  varied).  7.  When  sacrifices  were  offered  for 
ceremonial  uncleannesses: — (i)  For  touching  the  carcass  of  an  un- 
clean animal  (Lev.  5:2).  (2)  For  touching  the  uncleanness  of  men 
(Lev.  5:3).  In  both  these  cases,  if  the  touching  was  hidden  from 
the  one  who  did  it,  when  he  became  aware  of  it  he  was  to  be  guilty 
of  it,  and  was  to  offer  a  sin-offering  for  his  cleansing  (Lev.  5:6-9). 
(3)  For  breach  of  the  Nazarite  vow  (Num.  6:1-21). 

This  offering  was  to  be  made  rei^uhirly  for  the  whole  people  at 
the  following  "set  feasts" — the  New  Moons,  Passover,  Pentecost. 
Feagt  of  Trumpets,  and  that  of  Tabernacles  (Num.  28:15-29,38), 
Also  on  the  great  day  of  the  annual  Atonement,  when  the  two  goats 
were  offered  (Lev.  16).  Also  when  the  whole  congregation  sinned 
through  ignorance  (Lev.  4:13-21;   Num.  15:22-26). 

The  animals  and  ceremonial  of  this  sin-offering  were  the  follow- 
ing:— For  private  persons,  the  animal  was  to  be  a  female  kid,  or  a 
lamb;  also  for  the  discharge  of  the  Nazarite  from  his  vow,  and  the 
purification  of  a  leper — or,  as  a  substitute  in  cases  of  poverty,  two 
turtle-doves  or  two  young  pigeons;  or,  if  any  poor  persons  could 
not  furnish  these,  a  little  flour,  without  oil  or  incense.  For  a  ruler, 
it  was  to  be  a  male  kid.  For  the  congregation,  or  the  High  Priest, 
on  ordinary  occasions,  it  was  to  be  a  young  bullock;  and  on  the 
great  day  of  the  annual  atonement,  they  were  to  be,  for  the  congre- 
gation two  goats,  and  for  the  High  Priest  a  bullock.  All  the  animals 
must   be  without   blemish,   typically   perfect;   and    the   value  of  the 

(*)  See  Magee  on  Atonement,  etc.  Dissertation  33  Vol.  I.,  pp.  95,  96 — partly 
quoted  by  Dwight  in  a  footnote;  and  indorsed  by  Him,  not  quite  correctly,  we 
think.  Gen.  3:16-19  and  Rom.  8:20-23,  ^s  also  Rom.  5:12-18,  I.  Cor.  15:21,  cer- 
tainly teach  that  all  sufferings  are  consequences  of  sin;  but  these  are  partly  of  the 
sin  of  our  first  parents,  partly  of  the  sins  of  others,  and  partly  of  our  own;  some  of 
them  natural  consequences  of  the  sin  of  the  first  pair,  some  of  that  of  others,  and 
some  of  our  own.  The  Scriptures  do  not  teach  us,  that  "  the  sufferings  which  we 
ourselves  endure  are  [all]  chastisements  for  our  J>ersotta/  sins." 


THE  SIM-OFFERING.  363 

offerings  grew  according  as  the  offerer  was  a  private  person,  the 
whole  congregation,  or  a  ruler,  or  a  High  Priest,  that  of  the  latter 
being  highest  on  the  scale — thus  indicating  degrees  of  responsibili- 
ties and  of  guilt  in  the  offerers  according  to  their  positions,  or  num- 
ber. When  the  offerer  brought  his  victim  to  the  altar,  he  was  to  lay 
his  hand  on  its  head,  doubtless  with  confession  and  prayer,  and  then 
kill  it.  Its  blood  was  carefully  caught,  and  the  peculiarity  of  the 
sin-offering  was  in  the  uses  made  of  it.  If  the  offering  was  for  a 
private  person,  or  a  ruler,  "the  anointed  priest"  (High  Priest)  was 
to  take  of  the  blood  with  his  finger,  and  put  it  on  the  horns  of  the 
altar;  and  then  pour  the  remainder  at  the  bottom  of  the  altar.  As 
the  altar  was  the  special  meeting-place  of  God  and  His  people, 
its  horns  were  emblems  of  His  "omnipotence,  which  would  keep 
and  save  them,  if  they  met  Him  there  in  the  appointed  way  of  atone- 
ment and  in  the  proper  spirit.  If,  on  account  of  poverty,  one 
brought  two  turtle-doves  or  two  young  pigeons,  the  priest  was  to 
sprinkle  of  the  blood  of  the  one  for  the  sin-offering  upon  the  side  of 
the  altar,  and  wring  out  the  remainder  of  it  at  its  bottom.  If  the 
offering  was  for  "  the  priest  that  is  anointed,"  or  for  the  whole  "con- 
gregation of  Israel,"  he  was  to  take  some  of  the  bullock's  blood  into 
the  Holy  Place  of  the  Tabernacle,  to  dip  his  finger  in  it,  and  to 
sprinkle  of  it  seven  times  before  the  Lord,  before  the  veil  of  the  Most 
Holy  Place,  in  which  God  dwelt;  then  to  "put  some  of  it  upon  the 
horns  of  the  altar  of  sweet  incense  before  the  Lord" — that  is,  before 
that  veil;  and  then  to  pour  all  the  remainder  of  it  at  the  bottom  of 
the  altar  of  burnt-offering  before  the  Tabernacle.  When,  on  the 
great  day  of  annual  atonement,  the  High  Priest  offered  the  pre- 
scribed sacrifices  for  himself  and  his  house,  and  for  the  whole  con- 
gregation, he  first  killed  a  bullock  for  a  sin-offering  for  himself  and 
his  house;  then,  having  burnt  incense  in  the  Most  Holy  Place  before 
the  Lord,  he  took  of  the  blood  and  sprinkled  it  with  his  finger  upon 
the  mercy-seat  on  its  east  side,  and  then  before  it  with  his  finger 
seven  times.  He  then  killed  the  goat  of  the  sin-offering  for  the  peo- 
ple, and  did  the  same  with  its  blood  in  the  Most  Holy  Place,  which 
he  had  with  that  of  his  bullock,  and  thus  made  atonement  for  the 
Holy  Place,  "because  of  the  uncleanness  of  the  children  of  Israel, 
and  because  of  their  transgressions  in  all  their  sins."  He  then  went 
out  of  the  Most  Holy  Place  to  the  altar  of  incense  before  it  or  the 
Lord,  and  made  atonement  for  that,  taking  of  the  blood  of  the  bullock 
and  of  the  blood  of  the  goat  and  putting  of  each  upon  the  horns  of  that 
altar  round  about,  and  sprinkled  01  the  blood  with  his  finger  upon 


364  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

it  seven  times,  to  cleanse  and  hallow  it  from  the  uncleanness  of  the 
children  of  Israel.  He  then  laid  both  his  hands  on  the  head  of  the  live 
goat,  confessed  over  him  all  the  iniquities  of  the  children  of  Israel, 
and  all  their  transgressions  in  all  their  sins,  putting  them  upon  his 
head,  and  sent  him  away  by  an  appointed  man  into  the  wilderness, 
bearing  upon  him  all  their  iniquities  into  a  solitary  land,  uho  was 
to  let  him  go  there.  The  fat  of  the  bullock  and  of  the  killed  goat 
was  burnt  on  the  altar  of  burnt-offering,  and  the  whole  remainder 
of  their  bodies  was  carried  out  of  the  camp  and  burnt.  These  atone- 
ments for  the  priests  and  the  whole  people  were  to  be  made  annually 
in  the  seventh  month,  on  the  tenth  day  of  the  month,  to  expiate  all 
their  iniquities  of  the  preceding  year.  Such  were  the  sin-offerings, 
and  the  atonements  were  only  accomplished  when,  after  the  imposi- 
tion of  hands  on  the  heads  of  the  victims,  death  was  inflicted  on 
them,  and  their  blood  was  used  as  shown.  The  life-blood  of  the 
victim  was  given  to  and  accepted  by  God  as  a  substitute  for  the  life 
of  the  guilty  offerer,  forfeited  by  his  sins;  and  the  acceptance  was 
ratified  by  the  burning  of  the  fatty  parts  as  a  sweet  savor  unto  the 
Lord. 

§  205.    THE  GUILT-   OR  TREPASS-OFFERING. 

This  offering,  D^J^,  asham,  guilt-  or  trespass-offering,  was 
always  for  individuals  who  were  guilty  of  wrongs  done  to  others,  and 
to  God  as  Ruler  and  Guardian  of  their  rights  and  interests.  Lange 
says,*  "  Trespass  is  wrong  done  to  another  (whether  God  or  man), 
and  involves  not  only  sacrifice  for  its  sin,  but  also  amends  for  its 
harm."  "  The  asliam  expresses  that  man  has  become  guilty,  liable 
to  punishment,  towards  Jehovah  or  towards  his  fellow  man;  and 
the  emphasis  lies  so  strongly  on  the  liability  to  punishment, 
that  the  same  word  denotes  at  the  same  time  satisfaction."  Guilt, 
as  such,  is  the  entire  effect  of  sin  in  its  cosmic  sphere,  from 
the  bad  conscience  even  to  death,  to  Sheol,  to  Hell."  "  Sin  is 
like  a  stone  cast  into  a  lake;  guilt  like  the  wave-circles  which 
go  out  from  it,  the  circumference  of  that  evil  center."  This  sac- 
rifice was  offered  in  the  following  cases:  i.  When  one  committed 
a  trespass,  and  sinned  through  ignorance  or  inadvertence  in  the  holy 
things  of  the  Lord  (Lev.  5:14-16);  in  not  paying  his  full  tithes;  in 
neglecting  to  redeem  his  first-born;  in  appropriating  the  first-fruits 
to  his  own  use;  or  in  eating  parts  of  the  sacrifice  which  pertained 
to  the  priests.     Besides  bringing  to  the  Lord  a  ram  without  blemish, 


(*)  See  Comm.  on  Lev.,  in  beginning  his  comments  on  4:1-35 — 5-^~^3* 


THE  GUILT  OR   TRESPASS  OFFERING.  365 

he  was  to  make  compensation  in  money,  according  to  the  priest's 
estimation,  with  a  fifth  of  the  value  added.  2.  When  one  trans- 
gressed any  prohibition  of  the  Lord  in  the  law  unconsciously  (Lev. 
5:17-19),  he  was  to  bring- the  same  offering,  according  to  the  priests' 
estimation  of  its  value.  3.  When  one  dealt  falsely  with  his  neigh- 
bor in  a  matter  of  deposit,  or  of  bargain  (pledge),  or  of  robbery,  or 
oppressed  him;  or  had  found  that  which  was  lost,  and  dealt  falsely 
therein,  and  swore  to  a  lie,  he  must  restore  it  in  full,  with  the  addi- 
tion of  a  fifth  part  of  its  value,  and  must  bring  the  same  offering,  a 
ram  without  blemish,  to  the  Lord,  whom  he  had  wronged  by  trans- 
gressing His  law  in  wronging  his  neighbor  (Lev.  6:1-7).  4-  When 
a  man  had  illicit  connection  with  a  bond-maid,  betrothed  to  an- 
other, but  not  free,  he  was  to  bring  the  same  offering,  and  when  the 
priest  made  atonement  for  him  with  it,  he  would  be  forgiven  (Lev. 
19:20-22).  5.  When  a  leper  was  to  be  purified  (Lev.  14:12),  and 
when  a  defiled  Nazarite  was  to  be  purified  (Num.  6:12),  a  trespass- 
offering  was  sacrificed  in  connection  with  a  sin-offering — a  he  lamb. 
This  statement  shows  that  the  guilt-offering  differed  from  the 
sin-offering,  i.  In  being  only  for  the  specified  sins  of  individuals. 
2.  In  the  character  of  the  sins,  as  consisting  in  sovnQ  fraud  or  inrong 
against  man,  and  so  against  God  also,  for  which  restitution,  except 
in  the  cases  under  4  and  5,  must  be  made  to  those  wronged,  and  to 
God  through  His  priest  as  a  substitution  for  his  deserved  punish- 
ment. In  the  cases  excepted,  it  was  made  only  to  God.  3.  The 
fact,  that  a  sacrifice  to  God  was  required  for  these  sins,  in  addition 
to  restitutions  to  the  wronged,  shows  that  their  aspect  as  sins  against 
God,  which  could  not  be  forgiven  without  atonement,  was  not  over- 
looked, but  merely  set  forth  less  prominently  than  that  of  the  sins 
for  which  the  sin-offerings  were  made.  4.  This  sacrifice  was  called 
the  guilt-offering,  because  it  signified  the  fact  that  the  sins  desig- 
nated created  a  guilt-debt  to  men,  and  to  God  with  them,  as  theo- 
cratic Ruler,  which  could  only  be  cancelled  by  restitution  to  men 
and  sacrifice  to  God  in  addition.  We  might  almost  call  it  the  offer- 
ing for  the  guilt  of  dishonesty.  5.  In  all  the  cases,  except  that  of 
the  leper  and  the  Nazarite,  the  offering  required  was  the  same,  a 
ram;  and  the  mode  of  the  offering  was  much  less  solemn  and  signifi- 
cant than  that  of  the  sin-offering,  "  the  blood  being  only  sprinkled 
round  about  upon  the  altar"  (Lev.  7:2).  6.  In  the  cases  of  the 
leper  and  Nazarite,  a  he  lamb  was  the  offering,  instead  of  a  ram. 
These  were  to  bring  this  offering,  because  they  owed  a  guilt-debt  to 
the  people  and  to  God — the  leper,  on  account  of  his  disease,  viewed 


366  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

as  a  special  consequence  of  sin  and  dangerous  to  them,  as  well  as 
preventive  of  his  duties  to  them,  and  the  Nazarite,  on  account  of 
his  ceremonial  defilement;  so  that  both  had  violated  the  duties  they 
owed  as  members  of  the  theocracy,  and  had  shed  a  bad  influence 
upon  it. 

Such  were  the  requirements  of  the  law  respecting  the  sin-offer- 
ing and  the  guilt- offering;  the  former  for  sin  in  its  intrinsic  nature, 
viewed  as  directly  against  God,  and  hence  the  fundamental  sacrifice 
of  all;  the  latter,  a  closely  connected  adjunct  to  it  referring  directly 
to  the  sins  specified  against  men  and  so  against  God  as  Theocratic 
Ruler,  as  wrongs  against  them  creating  a  guilt-debt  to  them  in  their 
theocratic  organization  under  God  and  to  Him.  These  two  offer- 
ings covered,  expiated,  atoned  for,  all  sins  that  were  pardonable — all 
not  presumptuous,  or  committed  with  a  Jiigh  hand.  If  these  were 
offered  as  required,  the  promise  was  that  they  should  be  forgiven; 
if  not,  "  there  was  no  remission/'  and  the  presumptuous  despisers 
"  died  without  mercy." 

§  206.    THE    EURNT-OFFERING.        NOT    ORIGINATED    BY    THE     LEVITICAL 
LAW,  BUT  BY  ADAM,  'lAUGHT   BY  GOD. 

It  is  not  important  here  to  develop  the  Scriptural  teachings 
respecting  the  burnt-offering  and  the  peace  offering;  but  we  have  a 
few  things  to  say  respecting  them,  especially  the  former.  We  refer  to 
the  passages  concerning  them  (Lev.  1:2-17;  3"i~i7)-  One  thing  to 
notice  is,  that,  as  far  as  the  imposition  of  the  hands  of  the  offerer  on 
the  victim's  head,  his  killing  it,  and  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  round 
about  upon  the  altar  by  the  priest  were  concerned,  this  offering  had 
the  characteristics  of  the  sin-offering,  and  it  was  "  to  make  atone- 
ment for  him.*  This  offering  was  not  only  for  individuals,  or,  by 
itself  or  along  with  the  sin  and  guilt  offerings,  for  the  whole  people, 
but  was  the  constant  daily  morning  and  evening  sacrifice  for  the 
whole  people.  It  was  not  originated  by  the  Levitical  La\v,  as  the 
others  were,  but  evidently  by  some  direction  or  inspiration  of  God 
to  Adam,  and  not  by  any  instinctive  impulse,  guess  or  reasoning  of 
his.  It  is  plainly  assumed  in  the  first  chapter  of  Leviticus,  that  it 
had  been  a  standing  custom  of  individuals  to  offer  it;  and  Scripture 
tells  us  that  it  had  been  offered  by  Abraham  (Gen.  22:1-14),  by 
Noah  (Gen.   8:20),  and  by  Abel  (Gen.  4:4) — a  ratn  by  Abraham 

{*)  See  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  XXXIX.,  pp.  262.  263.  Vol.  II.,  LXVIL,  pp.  24-26. 
OuUaui,  Dis.  I.,  Chap.  X.;  also  Chap.  V.,  pp.  125,  126.  Faiibaiin,  Typology,  etc., 
Vol.  XL,  pp.  347,  348.     Lauge's  Lev.  Int.  and  Chap.  I. 


THE  BURNT-OFFERING.  367 

(Isaac's  question  in  verse  7  clearly  showing  that  he  knew  the  cus- 
tom, and  that  a  lamb  was  the  usual  victim);  "of  every  clean  beast, 
and  of  every  clean  fowl"  by  Noah;  and  "of  the  firstlings  of  his 
flock"  by  Abel  —  all  the  animals  being  of  the  kinds  afterwards 
required  by  the  Levitical  Law.  Sacrifice  no  more  begins  with 
Abel's,  than  with  Abraham's  or  Noah's,  but  is  spoken  of  in  his  case 
as  much  as  in  theirs  as  according  to  custom.  We  see  not  how  the 
inference  can  be  avoided  that  it  originated  with  Adam.  How  or 
when  ?  We  can  see  no  shadow  of  reason  for  supposing  that  he  was 
led  to  peform  it  by  any  "instinctive  impulse  "  under  "  the  sense  of 
guilt  and  lost  communion  with  God,"  or  by  any  mere  self-sprung 
feeling;  or  that  he  ever  invented  it.  As  permission  had  not  been 
given  him,  as  far  as  we  know,  to  eat  animal  food,  or  to  kill  any 
creature,  by  what  conceivable  psychological  process  could  even  a 
guess  have  entered  his  mind,  that  it  would  be  pleasing  to  God  to 
kill  and  offer  animals,  especially  sheep,  as  sacrifices  to  Him  ?  How, 
without  some  kind  of  a  revelation  or  direction  from  God,  could  he 
have  any  conception  whatever  of  animal  sacrifices,  and  of  these 
offered  on  an  altar  ?  Or,  if  such  a  conception  could  possibly  have 
sprung  into  his  mind,  how  could  it  seem  other  than  unnatural,  cruel, 
and  revolting  to  inflict  the  pain  and  suffering  of  death  upon  inno- 
cent creatures,  not  even  rational,  to  pour  out  their  blood,  and  to 
burn  up  their  bodies  on  an  altar? — how  otherwise  than  utterly 
absurd,  to  do  so  to  either  placate  or  please  God,  without  authority 
or  license  from  Him?  What  relation  could  he,  or  any  one  since, 
discern  between  such  use  or  abuse  of  innocent  animals,  whether 
called  eucharistic,  votive,  precatory,  propitiatory,  or  expiatory,  and 
God's  claims  on  him  for  gratitude,  or  against  him  for  penal  suffer- 
ings deserved  by  his  sins,  or  for  anything  else  ?  What  could  such 
offerings  be,  but  mere  guess-work,  instead  of  which  throwing  stones 
or  tearing  up  rose-bushes  would  have  been  just  as  good?  —  an 
exceedingly  risky  venture  of  experiment,  with  much  greater  reason 
to  fear  incensing  or  displeasing  God  by  such  destruction  of  inno- 
cent animals,  than  to  hope  to  please  and  appease  Him  by  such 
unauthorized  immolation  ?  To  us,  therefore,  the  supposition  that 
Adam  originated  these  offerings  without  Divine  direction  of  some 
diiect  kind  is  utterly  incredible  and  unreasonable.* 

The  standing  reason  for  this  supposition  and  against  the  origin- 
ation of  sacrifice  by  God  is  the  absence  of  a  command  from  Him 
to  Adam  to  offer  it.     In  the  article  on  "Sacrifice,"  in  Smith's  Dic- 


(•::•)  Maeee,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  .-,78-:if)i,  Essays  LIV-LVIII. 


368  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

tionary  of  the  Bible,  the  author  says:  "  Sacrifice,  when  first  men- 
tioned in  the  case  of  Cain  and  Abel,  is  referred  to  as  a  thing  of 
course;  it  is  said  to  have  been  brought  by  men;  there  is  no  hint  of 
any  command  given  by  God.  This  consideration,  the  strength 
of  which  no  ingenuity  has  been  able  to  impair,  although  it  does  not 
actually  disprove  the  formal  revelation  of  sacrifice,  yet  at  least  for- 
bids the  assertion  of  it,  as  a  positive  and  important  doctrine."  In  a 
foot-note,  he  presents  some  more  of  the  same  kind  of  reasoning. 
He  states  the  facts  of  the  case  correctly;  but,  like  Mephiposheth, 
his  conclusion  is  lame  in  both  its  feet — in  what  it  denies  and  in  what 
it  assumes.  The  strength  of  the  facts  no  ingenuity  has  ever  been 
exerted  to  impair;  his  conclusion  none  can  impair,  because  it  has  no 
validity  to  impair.  The  true  reasoning  is  this:  The  recorded  facts 
show  that  sacrifice  did  not  originate  with  Cain  and  Abel,  but  with 
Adam,  who  was  still  alive  when  they  made  their  offerings,  and  with 
him  either  by  or  without  Divine  direction.  The  objections  urged 
above  to  the  latter  alternative,  as  well  as  positive  reasons  for  a 
Divine  authorization,  show  this  alternative  unreasonable  and  absurd, 
and  that  the  other  must  be  true.  The  objection,  that  no  command 
of  God  requiring  it  is  recorded,  is  of  no  weight,  because  there  may 
have  been  one,  though  not  recorded  among  the  brief  sketches  of 
the  first  part  of  Genesis,  and  because,  as  we  think,  a  direct  positive 
command  was  not  given,  but  directing  instruction;  for  it  was  plainly 
important,  that  the  guilty  pair  in  their  condition,  and  their  descend- 
ants until  a  nation  should  be  prepared  to  observe  the  commanded 
institution  of  sacrifices,  should  recognize  Him  as  granting  or  con- 
ferring upon  them,  as  an  act  of  mercy  and  grace,  a  great  privilege 
and  benefit;  and  further,  because  there  seems  to  have  been  no  set 
times  for  making  the  offerings,  but  doing  so  was  left  to  the  prompt- 
ings of  their  own  hearts  or  consciences  as  special  occasions  of  any 
kind  might  move  or  urge  them  to  it.*  The  first  chapter  of  Levit- 
icus shows  that  this  voluntary  character  of  the  burnt-offering  was 
partly  preserved  in  the  Levitical  Law.  It  is  among  our  wonders, 
that  such  a  man  as  Lange  should  have  adopted  the  notion  of  the 
merely  human  origination  of  sacrifice,  the  opposite  of  which  we 
deem  of  great  importance,  viewed  in  connection  with  the  eternal 
plan  of  redemption  and  the  consummate  sacrifice  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 


(*)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  381-385,  Essay  LVII.  Faiibairn,  Typology,  etc., 
Vol.  I.,  chap.  IV.,  pp.  287-300.  Valuable  note  of  John  Allen,  translator  of  Out- 
lam,  on  pp.  18-22. 


SACRIFICE.  3(^9 

§  207.    THAT  SACRIFICE  WAS  ORIGINATED  BY  ADAM  UNDIRECTED  BY 
GOD,  GROUNDLESS  AND  UNREASONABLE. 

Glance  at  the  case.  How  can  it  consist  with  any  fit  conception 
of  God's  eternal  plan  of  redemption  for  mankind  foreseen  as  fallen, 
including  His  whole  course  towards  them,  and  specially  the  incar- 
nation and  sacrificial  death  of  the  Son,  to  suppose  that,  although 
He  designed  in  it  the  whole  institution  of  sacrifices  typical  of  Christ, 
as  making  the  great  fulfilling,  antitypical  one  for  the  sins  of  the 
world,  and  its  results; — that,  although  the  burnt-offering  was  the 
foundation  of  that  institution,  and  the  others  were  distributed  from 
it; — that,  although  it  had  been  recognized  by  God  as  the  special 
medium  ot  access  to  Him  and  mode  of  securing  His  favor  from 
Adam  down,  He  having  furnished  a  ram  for  it  to  Abraham,  having 
accepted  Noah's  as  "a  sweet  smelling  savor,"  and  "having  had 
respect  to  Abel  and  to  his  offering;" — that,  although  these  offerers 
of  it  always  built  altars  to  offer  upon,  and  offered  the  "clean  beasts 
and  fowls  "  Avhich  were  afterwards  required  in  the  distributed  sacri- 
fices of  the  Levitical  Law; — and  that,  although  no  other  ground  of 
approach  to,  and  acceptance  by,  God  was  ever  revealed  to  mankind 
than  that  of  sacrifice;  yet  it  was  not  originated  by  God,  but  by 
Adam  by  some  inexplicable  freak  or  process  of  his  OAvn  uninspired, 
undirected,  guilty  mind;  and  Crod  forthwith  adopted  and  consti- 
tuted that  guess  or  invention  of  Adam,  including  the  altar,  the  kind 
of  creature,  and  the  mode  of  sacrificing  it,  to  be  such  for  the  whole 
race  until  the  final  day!  To  us  it  is  utterly  incredible  and  absurd 
to  suppose  any  such  thing — to  suppose  that  the  origin  of  sacrifice 
and  of  all  the  sacrificial  types  of  the  expiatory  sufferings  and  death 
of  Christ  for  the  sins  of  the  world  was  not  embraced  in  the  eternal 
redemi)tive  plan  and  in  its  execution  in  time,  but  left  to  the  mere 
blind,  groping  guess  of  the  one  first  guilty,  sin-darkened  man — to 
make  th'e  supreme  plan  of  God  hinge  on  such  a  contingent  guess! 
Suppose  Adam  had  not  guessed  this  seemingly  unreasonable,  un- 
natural way  of  animal  sacrifice,  but  something  else!  What  course 
would  God  then  have  taken?  We  are  told  that  Abel  offered  his 
sacrifice  by  faiih,  and  was  therefore  witnessed  to  by  God  that  he  was 
righteous.  But  how  could  he  offer  it  by  faith,  if  he  did  not  know 
that  God  had  authorized  it  ?  On  what  ground  could  he  act  it  in 
offering  what  and  as  he  did?  ( )r  could  Cain,  if  he  had  offered  just 
what  and  as  Abel  did  ? 

Essentially  the  same  objections  are  equally  valid  against  the 
notion  of  Spencer  that  the  Levitical  Law  of  sacrifices  was  given  to 


370  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  Israelites  by  Moses,  not  because  they  were  embraced  as  sym- 
bols and  types  in  God's  redemptive  plan,  as  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  and  other  Scriptures  plainly  teach  and  imply,  but  because 
the  Israelites,  having  been  accustomed  to  such  in  Egypt,  were  so 
infected  with  a  superstitious  regard  for  them  that  they  "could 
neither  be  safely  prohibited,  nor,  amidst  the  daily  growth  of  super- 
stition, be  left  to  the  choice  of  every  individual;  "  so  that,  to  prevent 
disastrous  corruptions  and  perversions,  this  Law,  prescribing  the 
victims,  the  time  and  modes  of  sacrificing  them,  and  all  relating  to 
them,  was  given  out  of  indulgence  to  the  prejudices  of  that  people, 
and  to  guard  as  much  as  possible  against  abuses.''' 

§  208.    A  CLUE  TO  V/HEN  GOD   TAUGHT  ADAM  TO  OFFER  ANIMALS  IN 
SACRIFICE THE  KINDS  AND  HOW. 

We  believe  we  have  a  clue  to  the  time  when  God  in  some  way 
directed  or  taught  Adam,  not  only  to  offer  animals  in  sacrifice,  but 
the  kind  or  kinds  of  them,  and  the  generic  meaning  of  the  rite.  It 
was  when  He  made  for  the  guilty  but  repentant  pair  "coats  of  skins, 
and  clothed  them"  (Gen.  3:21).  He  had  placed  them  on  the  basis 
of  the  redemptive  system  by  the  promise  of  the  serpent-quelling  seed 
of  the  woman  (verse  15),  which  He  immediately  followed  with  the 
stern  doomings  of  verses  16-19.  Adam's  faith  in  the  promise  so 
lifted  him  above  even  the  doom  to  bodily  death,  that  he  "called  his 
wife's  name  Life  {Havali),  because  she  would  be  the  mother  of  all 
living,"  doubtless  using  this  term  in  its  highest  significance.  It  is 
manifest  that  Eve  also  thus  seized  the  promise  by  faith  (Gen.  4:1). 
But  they  must  leave  Paradise,  and  go  out  into  the  rough  brake  of 
the  rude,  wild  w^orld,  where  their  wretched  fig-leaf  coverings,  wit- 
nesses of  their  guilt  and  shame,  would  utterly  fail  to  serve  their  need. 
As  before  the  doomings,  God,  to  support  them  under  them,  gave 
them  the  promise  of  the  serpent-queller,  so  now,  before  expelling 
them,  in  order  to  support  them  under  the  terrible  .trial  of  their 
expulsion,  He  demonstrated  His  merciful  and  gracious  care  for  their 
welfare  and  comfort  by  fittingly  clothing  them  (Gen.  3:21).  It  is 
not  said  in  what  manner  God  did  this,  but  probably  in  a  Avay  which 
would  be  to  them  a  kind  oi  object-lesson  how  to  do  it,  or  by  teaching 
them  to  do  the  whole  themselves.  Unless  God  somehow  instructed 
Adam  to  kill  the  animals,  he  would  not  have  dared  to  do  it;  and  it 

(*)  Outiani,  Dis.  I.,  Chap.  I.,  §§  7-10,  pp.  22-30;  also  Translator,  John 
Allen's  note  against  this  notion,  pp.  28,  29.  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  Essay  XLVII.,  pp. 
335-345- 


SACRIFICE, 


571 


is  improbable  that  God  v*-oiild  have  instructed  him  to  kill  them  for 
their  skins,  and  not  also  what  to  do  with  their  carcasses,  that  they 
should  not  be  left  to  rot  in  Paradise,  but  put  to  some  good  use, 
especially  ^vhen  He  might  have  taught  them  to  procure  clothing 
from  other  materials.  His  care  for  them  in  thus  clothing  their 
bodies  would  inspire  faith  in  them  that  He  would  also  care  for  them 
in  all  other  ways  necessary  for  their  real  good.  But  we  cannot  think 
that  this  care  for  their  bodies,  and  its  natural  impression  on  their 
hearts  was  all,  or  even  the  chief  part  of  God's  entire  provision  for 
them  at  that  time;  for  to  clothe  their  bodies  without  also  providing 
for  their  souls  would  have  been  a  very  small  matter,  especially  as 
they  were  just  to  be  launched  into  the  wild  world  to  live  and  propa- 
gate their  race  of  sinners  in  it,  under  all  the  severities  of  their  dooms, 
also  propagated  along  with  the  spiritual  vitiation  of  their  sin  and  all 
the  resulting  evils  in  time  and  the  liabilities  to  retribution  beyond 
time — all  known  to  God,  vfho  was  acting  on  His  own  knowledge. 
His  eternal  plan  of  redemption  was  based  on  the  designed  sacrifice 
of  the  seed  of  the  woman  as  "the  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the 
world,"  by  v/hich  the  serpent's  head  Avas  to  be  crushed.  It  was  in 
that  plan,  as  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  other  Scriptures  abund- 
antly teach,  to  symbolize  and  typify  that  one  great,  real  sacrifice  for 
sin,  until  the  fit  time  for  making  it,  by  sacrifices  of  animals,  not  only 
from  the  giving  of  the  ceremonial  law  through  Moses  to  the  pre- 
pared nation  of  Israel,  but,  as  already  shovvn,  from  before  the  offer- 
ings of  Cain  and  Abel;  their  object  from  the  first  being  to  impart 
all  the  light,  hope,  and  encouragement  possible  to  Adam  and  to  all 
down  till  the  great  antitypical  sacrifice  should  be  made.  Is  it  not 
then  beyond  any  reasonable  doubt,  and  simply  a  matter  of  course, 
that,  before  expelling  the  fallen,  but  then  repentant,  believing  pair 
(Gen.  3:20;  4:1),  God  v/ould  impart  to  them,  especially  to  Adam  as 
the  natural  head  of  his  race,  and  therefore  most  fittingly  before  any 
of  them  were  born,  such  an  elementary  knowledge  of  vicarious  sac- 
rifice as  the  basis  of  all  forgiveness  and  acceptance  by  Him,  as  they 
were  capable  of  receiving,  and  vv'ould,  in  some  adapted  way,  teach 
and  lead  him  to  offer  designated  animals  as  such  sacrifices  upon  an 
erected  altar?  Does  not  every  reason  of  relation,  fitness,  authority, 
influence,  and  type  demand  that  the  origin  of  the  rite  should  be  con- 
nected with  Adam,  and  not  with  any  one  of  his  sons  or  natural 
descendants?  For  what  kind  of  race-relation,  propriety,  authority, 
influence,  or  type  could  the  rite  possess,  if  its  origin  were  connected 
with  one  of  them?    The  others  would  almost  certainly  have  opposed 


372  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

and  rejected  it;  while,  if  originated  with  him  before  any  of  them 
were  born,  and  they  were  taught  concerning  it  and  accustomed  to 
its  performance  from  chikihood  by  these  first  parents  and  by  suc- 
ceeding ones,  they  would  naturally  recognize  it  as  sacred  and  author- 
itative, as  children  always  do  religious  customs  and  institutions 
observed  by  their  parents,  at  least  during  their  earlier  years;  and, 
when  they  would  come  to  act  for  themselves,  they  would,  according 
to  this  tendency,  practice  as  they  did.  This  view  alone  accounts 
for  and  explains  all  the  facts  connected  with  the  case — Jioiv  Cain 
and  Abel  came  to  bring  offerings  to  the  Lord  while  their  parents 
were  living,  as  a  matter  of  course — luhy  Cain's  was  not,  and  Abel's 
was,  accepted;  Cain's  being  a  willful  substitution  for  the  Divinely 
authorized,  expiatory  animal  sacrifice  of  his  father,  and  offered,  of 
course,  without  repentance  and  faith,  while  Abel's  was  that  of  his 
father  in  its  atoning  significance,  he  thus  "  by  faith  offering  unto 
God  a  more  excellent  sacrifice  than  Cain,"  so  that  God  had  respect 
to  both  him  and  it,  but  not  to  Cain  and  his—why  Noah,  having 
received  the  transmitted  knowledge  of  this  Divinely  authorized  sac- 
rifice, offered  it  after  his  egress  from  the  ark — wliy  offering  the  same 
kind  in  essentially  the  same  way  was  carried  on  and  continued  by 
his  descendants,  wherever  they  scattered  and  settled,  as  families, 
tribes,  and  nations — why  Abraham,  Melchisedec  doubtless,  Job  whc 
probably  lived  in  the  patriarchal  times,  Moses  before  he  received 
the  law  (Ex.  17:15),  Jethro  (Ex.  18:12),  Balak  (Num.  22:40),  and 
Balak  and  Balaam  (23:1-5),  offered  the  same,  all  on  altars — why 
Moses  placed  this  kind  of  sacrifice  foremost  and  fundamental  in  the 
list  of  those  of  the  Levitical  Law  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  as  that 
from  which  all  the  others  were  distributed — why,  in  the  earliest 
periods,  fathers  of  families  and  heads  of  tribes  and  clans  were  their 
priests — why,  later,  kings,  as  possessing  the  same  rights,  were,  not 
rarely,  recognized  as  priests  by  their  office— Wy;  afterwards  the 
priestly  office  was  generally  established  among  the  nations  as  a  dis- 
tinct and  sacred  one,  its  peculiar  function  being  to  offer  animal 
sacrifices,  commonly  the  original  kinds  of  animals,  or  including 
them,  and  to  do  so  in  essentially  the  original  way — -and  why  well 
nigh  the  entire  human  race,  not  sunk  in  barbarism,  has  always  relied 
on  these  sacrifices  as  expiatory  to  propitiate  God  or  the  gods.  The 
key  which  fits  so  many  locks,  and  alone  opens  any  of  them,  must  be 
the  only  right  one;  and,  without  this,  all  the  facts  mentioned,  occur- 
ing  from  the  morning  of  the  race  down  through  thousands  of  years, 
and  pertaining  to  so   many  persons  and  nations,  are  inexplicable 


SACRIFICE.  373 

mysteries.     To  us,  therefore,  it  is  certain  that  animal  sacrifices  were 
originated  with  Adam  by  a  direct  authorization  of  God. 

§  209.    THIS    ADAMIC    SACRIFICE    WAS    NOT    MERELY    EUCHARISTIC,    BUT 

EXPIATORY. 

That  this,  which  we  name  the  Adamic  sacrifice,  was  not  merely 
eucharistic,  nor  expressive  of  the  self-devotement  of  the  offerer  to 
God,  but  typically  expiatory,  signifying  a  vicarious  basis  of  forgive- 
ness of  sin  and  acceptance  with  God,  is  not  doubtful.     In  Gen.  4:4, 
it  is  said:  "  the  Lord  had  respect  unto  Abel  and  to  his  offering;  "  and, 
in  Heb.  11:4,  the  reason  is  given,  that  "  by  faith  Abel  offered  unto 
God  a  more  excellent  sacrifice  than  Cain."     Faith  is  trust,  confidence 
in,  reliance  upon  God  on  the  ground  of  some  revelation  or  declara- 
tion by  Him  to  us,  including  or  implying  invitations  and  promises 
to  assure  us  that  He  is  disposed  to  be  merciful  and  gracious  to  us; 
and,  without  such  a  ground,  it  is  impossible  for  any  of  mankind,  all 
consciously  sinners  and  guilty,  to  exercise  any  real  faith  in,  love  of, 
or  obedience  to  Him.     Faith  comes  from  hearing,  or  objective  com- 
munication only;  and  what  is  heard  must  be  some  gracious  revela- 
tion or  disclosure,  which  faith  accepts  just  as  given.     What  ground 
of  faith  had  Cain  and  Abel?     No  other  than  their  father  had,  the 
promise  of  the  serpent-bruising  seed  of  the  woman,  followed  by 
God's  clothing  him  and  Eve  with  coats  of  skins,  in  connection  with 
'  which,  as  we  doubt  not.  He  instructed  them   to  offer  the  bodies  of 
the  animals  on  an  altar,  as  sacrifices  for  their  sins,  as  the  ground  of 
His  forgiving  them.  His  acceptance  of  which  with  full  Favor  to  them 
He  showed  by  sending  fire  upon  the  sacrifices  to  consume  them.^'= 
God  also,  we  think,  instructed  Adam   at  the  same  time,  that  such 
sacrifices  were   to  be  made  in   future   by  him   and   his  descendants 
whenever  a  special   sense  of  need  of  forgiveness   and   help  should 
press  them;  and  offering  them  was  thus  made  an  established  custom. 
Adam  and  Eve,  of  course,  taught  their  children  respecting  the  great 
promise   of  grace  and   its   sacrificial   supplement;  and  accordingly 
Abel  by  faith  brought  and  offered  his  animal  sacrifice  as  the  ground 
of  his  acceptance  with  God,  which  Cain,  in  willful  unbelief,  refused 
to  do,  but  substituted  an  offering,  not  sacrificial,  "of  the  fruit  of 
the  ground."     He  thus  acted  a  denial  of  his  need  for,  and  a  defiant 
rejection  of,  the  revealed   ground  of  faith  and    Divine  acceptance; 
and  his  sin  with  its  guilt  was  left  like  a  terrible  wild  beast  couched 
at  his  door,  waiting  to  rend  and  devour  him,  while  .'Vbcl   by  offering 
(•")  ^faj^ce.  Vol.  1.,  No.  LVIf.,  pp.  3^^-39'- 


374  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHTNGS  ON  THE  A  TONE  ME  N'T. 

In  faith  was  testified  to  by  God,  as  7-i\q/i/roi/s,  (t'hmmr) — that  is, 
justified  by  his  faith,  "God  bearing  witness  in  respect  to,  [or  over] 
his  gifts,"  doubtless  bv  sending  fire  upon  and  consuming  them.'''  By 
thus  manifesting  His  respect  unto  him  and  ';o  his  offering,"  He 
recognized  him  as  rightc0us:\ 

§210.    THE  BURNT-OFFERINGS  OF    NOAH,  ABRAHAM,  ETC.,  NOTICED. 

That  the  burnt-offerings  of  Noah  (Gen.  8:20),  were  designed 
by  him  to  be  expiatory  seems  to  us  manifest,  not  only  from  the  fact 
that  he  evidently  knew  the  circumstances  of  the  origin  of  such  sac- 
rifices, and  their  significance  in  relation  to  men  as  sinners  and  to 
their  promised  deliverer,  also  of  Abel's  offering,  and  not  improbably 
of  such  offerings  not  unrepealed  during  the  1,600  years  since  Adam 
by  the  pious  line,  but  because,  as  he  was  now  the  new  natural  head 
of  the  race,  and  fully  knew  why  the  Flood  had  drowned  all  but  him 
and  his  family,  and  that  his  and  their  sin  exposed  them  to  like 
destruction,  he  desired  to  secure  His  forgiveness  and  favor  in  this 
hereditary  way.  As  the  burnt-offering  Avas  an  undivided  unit  con- 
taining all  the  others,  until  its  distribution  by  the  Levitical  Law, 
Noah's  design  in  his  great  aggregate  offering  was  doubtless  com- 
plex, including  with  that  of  expiation  that  of  thanksgiving  and  that 
of  a  special  dedication  of  Himself  and  his  v/hole  family  to  God.  His 
aggregate  offering  "  of  every  clean  beast  and  every  clean  fov.d,  as 
burnt-offerings  on  the  altar  "  was,  we  think,  under  Divine  direction. 
The  expression  in  verse  21  of  God's  pleasure  in  the  sacrifice,  that 
'•'He  smelled  the  sweet  savor"  of  it,  is  applied  by  Paul  directly  to 
"the  offering  and  ^sacrifice  "  of  Christ  to  God  for  us  (Eph.  5:2), 
which  distinctly  proves  the  chiefly  expiatory  character  of  Noah's 
offering. 

The  case  of  the  burnt-offering  of  Abraham  (Gen.  22:1-13),  is 
one  of  the  supremely  wonderful  matters  contained  in  the  wonderful 
Book  of  God.  Without  enlarging  on  it  here,  v/e  notice  only  the 
following  respecting  it.  This  command  of  God  to  Abraham  shows 
the  latter's  knowledge  of  this  race-long  rite  of  burnt- offerings,  how 
it  was  executed,  and  its  religious  and  moral  purposes.  But,  instead 
of  the  regular  animal,  the  command  now  was:  "Take  now  thy  son, 
thine  only  son,  whom  thou  lovest,  even  Isaac,  *  *  *  and  offer  him 
-,;;  :•;  =!:  |-q^  ^  burnt-offeriug."  This  command  was  to  prove  or  test  his 
faith  in   and  obedience  to  Himself.     At   the  critical  moment,  when, 

(*)  Lev.  9:24;  Judges  6:21;  I.  Kings  18:38;  I.  Chion.  21:26;  II.  Chron.  7:1. 
<f)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  58-62.     No.  LXIIL,  pp.  476-479. 


B  URNT-  OFFERINGS.  375 

in  intent,  Abraham  had  ah-eady  offered  his  dear,  consenting  son,  his 
hand,  uplifted  with  the  knife  to  slay  his  son,  \yas  arrested  by  the 
Divine  prohibition  of  the  act  from  behind  him;  and,  turning  to  the 
place  of  the  voice,  he  saw  "  a  ram  caught  in  the  thicket  by  his 
horns;"  and  he  "took  the  ram,  and  offered  him  up  for  a  burnt- 
offering  in  the  stead  of  his  son  " — a  textus  pi-ohaiis  for  vicarious 
sacrifice.  The  chief  design  of  God  in  this  wondrous  offering,  so  full 
of  significance  for  the  true  Israel  of  God  in  all  after-times,  was  doubt- 
less that  it  should  be  a  most  impressive  type  of  the  great  offering  up 
by  the  infinite  Father  of  His  only-begotten  Son  (John  3:16),  the  Son 
of  His  love  (Col.  1:13),  as  an  expiatory  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the 
world.  The  type  was  symbolically  the  same  as  the  antitype;  and 
the  correspondence  of  the  latter  to  the  former  is  plainly  referred  to 
in  the  remarkable  passage  in  Rom.  8:32,  and  also  in  John  3:16. 

That  the  burnt-offerings  which  Job  regularly  offered  for  his 
sons  (Job  1:5),  and  those  which  his  three  guilty  friends  were  com- 
manded by  God  to  offer  for  themselves  (42:8,  9),  were  expiatory  is 
incontrovertible. 

The  conclusion  from  this  survey  is,  that  the  burnt-offerings  were 
the  only  kind  offered  to  God  by  those  who  continued  in  the  theistic 
faith  during  the  2514  years  before  the  giving  of  the  Levitical  Law; 
and  that  the  common  understanding  concerning  them  always  was, 
that  they  were  expiatory,  so  that,  when  offered  in  faith,  they  were  re- 
garded as  the  ground,  not  only  for  obtaining  forgiveness  of  sins,  but  for 
securing  acceptance  of  thanks  for  benefits,  and  help,  of  prayers  for 
help  when  needetl,  and  of  vows  made  and  kept.  The  heathen  retained 
essentially  the  same  view  of  them  when  they  offered  them  to  their 
false  deities,  deriving  it  doubtless  from  the  primitive  instruction.* 

When  this  one  primitive  sacrifice  of  the  burnt-offering  was  sep- 
arated into  all  the  others  prescribed  in  the  Levitical  Law,  so  as  to 
symbolize  all  the  distinct  objects  before  symbolized  by  it  alone,  still, 
because  it  was  the  original  and  fundamental  one,  and  because  of  its 
remaining  comprehensive  significance,  it  was  placed  first  in  the  Law. 
While  the  sin-  and  guilt-offerings  were  covers  or  atonements  for  the 
positive  sins  designated  as  their  objects,  the  burnt-offering  was  for 
those  constantly  recurring  failures  and  faults  of  heart  and  life  of 
those  standing  in  the  covenant,  which,  although  not  causing  exclus- 
iot)  from  it,  or.  as  we  would  say,  from  the  Church,  would  wound 
their  conscience,  mar  their  peace  with  God,  induce  self-condemna- 
tion and  unhappiness,  and  would  need  forgiveness  from  God  along 

{*)  Masee.  Vol.  II.,  No.  LXVIL.  dp.  24.-26. 


376  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

with  repentance  and  consecration  of  heart  and  life  in  the  future.  In 
Lev.  I.,  where  it  is  prescribed  for  individuals  standing  in  covenant 
relations,  as  a  privilege  granted  to  any  disposed  to  offer  it,  its  orig- 
inal voluntary  character  is  retained,  the  victims  to  be  offered  and 
the  mode  of  offering  them  being  alone  prescribed;  while  in  Ex.  29: 
38-46;  Num.  28:3-6;  and  Lev.  6:9,  it  is  required  to  be  offered  every 
morning  and  evening  for  the  whole  covenant  people,  and,  during  the 
night,  when  the  altar  was  free  from  other  use,  to  be  consumed  so 
slowly  as  to  last  till  morning.  It  "was  always  accompanied  with  a 
meal  and  drink  offering,  through  which  the  worshipper  pledged  him- 
self to  the  dilligent  performance  of  the  deeds  of  righteousness."  It 
was  also  to  be  offered  in  connection  with  a  sin-offering  on  the  great 
day  of  atonement,  with  the  three  principle  annual  festivals,  and  on 
other  occasions.* 

§  21 1.    THE  PEACE-OFFERINGS — ALSO  EXPIATORY. 

These  were  saci-ifices  of  thanksgiving  or  praise,  of  a  vow,  and 
of  free-will,  the  first  of  which  was  clearly  the  most  important.  The 
fact,  that  they  were  all  offered  with  the  imposition  of  hands  and  the 
sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  the  victims  upon  the  altar  round  about, 
shows  that,  like  all  the  other  bloody  sacrifices,  they  were  funda- 
mentally related  to  the  offerer  as  a  sinner,  and  so  had  an  expiatory 
character.  They  were  the  symbolical  basis  of  the  acceptance  of 
thanks  or  praise,  the  vow,  the  prayer,  or  the  free  seeking  after  God, 
which  they  expressed.  Says  B'ahr,  approvingly  quoted  by  Fair- 
bairn, — "The  reference  to  sin  and  atonement  discovers  itself  in  the 
most  striking  and  decided  manner,  precisely  in  regard  to  that  species 
of  peace-offerings  which  Avas  the  most  important  and  customary, 
and  which  might  seem  at  first  sight  to  have  least  to  do  with  such  a 
reference,  viz:  in  the  praise-offering.  The  Hebrew  word,  todah, 
comes  from  a  verb,  which  signifies  as  well  to  confess  to  Jehovah  sin, 
guilt,  misconduct,  as  to  ascribe  adoration  and  praise  to  His  name.f 
The  confession  of  sin  can  only  be  made  in  the  light  of  God's  holi- 
ness; hence,  when  man  confesses  his  sin  before  God,  he  at  the  same 
time  confesses  the  holiness  of  God.  But,  as  holiness  is  the  expression 
of  the  highest  name  of  Jehovah,  the  confession  of  sin  with  Israel 
carries  along  with  it  the  confession  ot  the  name  of  Jehovah;  and 
every  confession  of  this  name,  as  the  front  and  center  of  all  Divine 
manifestations,  is  at  the  same  time  glory  and  praise  to  God.    Accord- 

(*)  Bush,  Introduction  to  Chap.  I.  of  Leviticus. 
(f)Comp.  Ps.  32:4;  I.  Kings  8:33;  Josh.  7:19. 


EXPIATORY.  377 

ingly,  the  Hebrews  necessarily  thought  in  their  praise-offerings  of 
the  confession  of  sin,  and  with  this  coupled  the  idea  of  an  atone- 
ment; so  that  an  atoning  virtue  was  properly  regarded  as  essentially 
belonging  to  this  sacrifice."* 

§212.    CONCLUSION    THAT  ALL   THE    ANIMAL    SACRIFICES    WERE    EXPIA- 
TORY, AND  SO  PROPITIATORY. 

Such  is  the  list  of  the  animal  sacrifices  prescribed  in  the  Levit- 
ical  Law;  and  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  by  every  principle  of 
sound  interpretation,  that  they  were  all  designedly  either  exclusively 
or  radically  expiatory,  not  one  of  them  merely  eucharistic,  votive, 
gr  selfconsecrative.  (i)  As  to  those  of  the  sin-  and  guilt-offerings, 
they  were  to  be  made  by  those  who  had  sinned  and  were  guilty  to 
make  atonement  or  a  cover  for  them,  as  a  basis  of  their  forgiveness. 
The  lives  of  the  offered  animals  were  substitutions  for  their  lives 
forfeited  by  their  sins,  or  for  the  punitive  sufferings  they  deserved; 
and,  without  their  offering  these,  they  had  no  remission,  while,  with 
their  offering  them,  they  always  had  it.  Hence,  these  offerings  were 
purely  expiatory.  (2)  The  same  is  shown  to  be  radically  true  of  all 
the  animal  sacrifices  by  the  requirement  of  the  imposition  of  the 
hand  of  the  one  oftering  for  himself,  of  the  priest  representing  the 
whole  congregation,  and  of  each  of  the  elders  representing  it,  upon 
the  head  of  the  animal  to  be  offered.  The  significance  of  this  sym- 
bolical act  is  stated  in  only  one  place  (Lev.  16:21,  22);  but  it  doubt- 
less had  the  same  significance  when  done  in  connection  with  any 
animal  sacrifice.  It  reads — "And  Aaron  shall  lay  both  his  hands 
upon  the  head  of  the  live  goat,  and  confess  over  him  all  the  iniqui- 
ties of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  all  their  transgressions,  even  all 
their  sins;  and  he  shall  put  them  upon  the  head  of  the  goat,  and 
shall  send  him  away  by  the  hand  of  a  man  that  is  in  readiness  into 
the  wilderness:  and  the  goat  shall  bear  upon  him  all  their  iniquities 
unto  a  solitary  land:  and  he  shall  let  go  the  goat  in  the  wilderness." 
The  two  goats  together  made  the  one  sin-offering  of  that  great 
annual  atonement  for  Israel,  both  being  necessary  to  represent  sym- 
bolically the  whole  character  and  designed  effect  of  atonement  by 
substitution,  although  one  animal  alone,  except  when  birds  were 
used,  was  a  sufficient  representation  on  all  other  occasions  not  so 
expressive.  By  the  priest's  confession  of  their  sins  and  putting 
them  on  the  head  of  the  goat  by  laying  his  hands  on  it,  he  most 
emphatically  acknowledged  their  guilt  or  desert  of  the  penalty  of 
(*)  Fairbaini's  Typ.,  Vol.  11.,  p.  354. 


378  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

them  and  signified  their  repentance  of  them,  while  he  transferred 
the  necessity  of  suffering  the  penalty  to  the  vicarious  animal.  This 
passage  positively  declares  the  transfer;  and,  in  verse  26,  the  goat  is 
represented  as  even  polluting  the  one  who  took  it  away  into  the 
wilderness  so  that  he  had  to  "wash  his  clothes  and  bathe  his  flesh 
in  water"  before  he  could  return  into  the  camp.  He  also  must  do 
the  same  who  carried  the  bullock  and  goat,  Avhich  had  been  offered 
for  sin-offerings,  out  of  the  camp  and  burnt  them,  as  if  they  were 
utterly  polluted  hy  the  sins  of  the  whole  people  being  transferred  to 
them.  By  these  sacrifices,  an  atonement  was  made  for  all  Israel  to 
cleanse  them,  that  they  might  be  clean  from  all  their  sins  before  the 
Lord — that  is,  from  all  the  penal  liabilities  they  had  incurred  by 
their  sins;  for  in  this  sense  only  could  they  be  cleansed  from  them. 
These  annual  sacrifices,  therefore,  were  purely  expiatory.  That 
laying  the  hand  on  the  head  of  the  animals  of  the  guilt-offerings  was 
also  done,  though  not  mentioned,  is  well  nigh  certain,  mention  of  it 
being  omitted  on  account  of  the  close  relation  of  that  to  the  sin- 
offering.*  If  confession  of  sin  always  accompanied  this  act,  which 
can  hardly  be  doubted,  what  else  could  it  mean,  than  that  the  ani- 
mal was  offered  as  an  expiation  of  the  offerer's  sin — that,  by  its 
dying  in  his  stead,  he  escaped  the  penal  death  which  he  deserved, 
being  forgiven?  Having,  by  this  expiation,  obtained  forgiveness, 
the  way  was  open  for  his  thanks  or  praise,  his  vow,  his  prayer,  or 
self-dedication  to  God  to  be  accepted  by  Him,  without  which  they 
could  not  possibly  be.f  (3)  The  same  is  shown  to  be  true  of  all 
the  animal  sacrifices  by  the  use  made  of  their  blood.  The  offerer, 
having  laid  his  hand  on  his  victim's  head  and  confessed  his  sin, 
closing,  according  to  Jewish  commentators,  as  fully  shown  in  the 
last  reference,  with  the  petition, — "Let  this  be  my  expiation,"  killed 
it  by  shedding  its  blood,  which  contained  its  life  or  soul,  thus  substi- 
tuting it  for  his  own  forfeited  by  his  sin,  the  priest,  having  caught 
the  blood,  used  it  in  the  ways  prescribed  for  the  different  offerings, 
which  we  have  seen,  thus"  symbolically  signifying  that  the  atonement 
was  accepted,  and  that  God's  wrath  or  justice  against  the  offerer 
(or,  if  it  was  offered  for  many,  or  for  the  whole  congregation,  against 
them)  was  satisfied,  and  he  or  they  had  forgiving"  acceptance  by 
God  on  account  of  the  substitution  of  the  animal's  life  for  his  or 
theirs  forfeited  by  sin.  (4)  The  fact,  that  under  the  Law  "without 
the  shedding  of  blood"   in  the  appointed  way,  "there  was  no  remis- 

{*)  Fairbaim,  Vol.  ]I.,  p.  312;  Magee,  No.  39,  pp.  256,  263. 

(f)  Fairbaim,  Vol.  II.,  p.  314.     Magee,  Vol.  I.,  No.  33,  pp.  191,  192. 


LEVITICAL  LAW. 


379 


sion,"  confirms  and  demonstrates  the  expiatory  character  of  all  the 
animal  sacrifices.  It  shows  that  the  Israelitish  people  could  have 
no  acceptance  with  God,  except  on  that  basis. 

It  is  thus  certain  that  all  these  sacrifices  were  pu.rely  substitu- 
tional or  vicarious,  and  therefore  expiatory/''  As  they  were  thus 
offered  by  God's  requirement  to  save  those  for  whom  they  were 
offered  from  the  death  or  penalty  which  they  deserved  and  must 
otherwise  have  themselves  suffered,  it  is  simply  a  matter  of  fact,  that 
they  were  sacrificed  ift  their  stead,  or  as  their  substitutes,  and  therefore 
as  expiations  for  their  sins.  So,  if,  instead  of  an  animal,  a  person  were 
offered  by  Divine  appointment  to  save  others  from  a  penal  death  or 
punishment,  which  they  have  deserved  and  must  otherwise  suffer,  it  is 
simply  a  matter  of  fact,  that  he  dies  i?i  their  stead  or  as  their  substi- 
tute, and  as  an  expiation  for  their  sins,  and  that  his  death  is  the  con- 
ditional ground  of  their  forgiveness,  its  sine  qua  ?ion.  By  no  possi- 
bility could  Christ  die  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  in  any  sense  of,  or 
hicluding,  saving  them  from  penal  death  or  punishment,  deserved 
by  their  sins,  except  as  their  substitute  and  on  purpose  to  make 
expiation  for  their  sins. 

§  213.    THE  PRIESTLY  OFFICE  OF  THE  LEVITICAL  LAW. 

It  is  specially  important  to  notice  the  priestly  office.  It  culmi- 
nated in  the  High  Priest,  the  others  being  merely  his  aids  in  exe- 
cuting it.  We  are  expressly  told  in  Heb.  5:1,  that  ''every  high 
priest,  taken  from  among  men,  is  ordained  for  men  in  things  per- 
taining to  God,  that  he  may  offer  both  gifts  and  sacrifices  for  sins." 
The  office  originated  in  the  necessities  of  men  as  sinners,  and  is  one 
of  mediation  between  them  and  God  for  their  advantage.  It  was  to 
secure  His  reconciliation  to  them,  and  as  a  consequence,  t/ieirs  to 
Him;  and  it  was  mainly  exercised  in  offering  expiatory  sacrifices  or 
atonements  to  Him  for  them.  Hence,  the  priest  was  a  representa- 
tive of  liis  fellow- men,  and  acted  for  ilicni  as  mediator  witli  Qod  in 
offering  gifts  and  sacrifices,  and  in.  intercession  to  Him  for  tliem.  I5y 
virtue  of  their  office,  it  belonged  to  the  priests  officially  to  be  recog- 
nized by  God  as  His  friends  and  familiars  in  a  most  peculiar  sense. 
They  were  admitted  ,by  Him  to  relations,  intimacies,  and  inter- 
course, not  permitted  to  others;  to  eat  with  Him,  as  it  were,  at  His 
own  table;  to  "draw  near  to  Him;"  and,  by  offering  sacrifices  and 
intercessions  to  Him  for  their  fellow  men,  to  secure  His  reconcili- 
ation  and   favor   to   them.     'I'lio   office    was   not   of   human,  but  of 

(*)  Select  Discourses  of  S.  E.  Dwi<zhi,  D.  D.,  x>x>.  i;4,  ^S. 


3So  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Divine  origination.  It  had  special  respect  to  God  Himself,  that  is, 
to  producing  such  effects  in  Him  and  His  relations  to  the  repre- 
sented people,  that  He  could  consistently  forgive  their  sins  and 
restore  them  to  His  favor.  The  sacred  records  of  its  origin  clearly 
show  what  is  distinctly  asserted  in  Heb.  5:4,  that  ''no  man  taketh 
this  honor  \into  himself,  but  he  that  is  called  of  God,  as  was  Aaron;" 
and,  in  verse  5  it  is  added — "So  also  Christ  glorified  not  Himself  to 
be  made  a  high  priest;  but  He  that  said  unto  Him,  Thou  art  my 
Son,  to-day  have  I  begotten  thee."  It  is  manifest  from  this  how 
essentially  the  priestly  differed  from  both  the  prophetic  and  the 
kingly  offices;  for  these  had  special  reference  to  men,  the  prophet 
making  known  to  them  God's  attitude,  counsels,  will,  and  commands, 
and  the  king  ruling  and  directing  them,  counseling  and  acting  for 
their  common  good.  We  are  clearly  taught  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  as  well  as  in  many  other  places  of  Scripture,  that  the 
Levitical  priesthood  and  its  functions  were  symbolical  and  typical 
of  the  priesthood  and  functions  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

§214.  RELATION  OF  GOD'S  THEOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT  OVER  ISRAEL, 
AND  OF  THE  LEVITICAL  PRIESTS,  ATONEMENTS,  AND  FORGIVE- 
NESSES TO  HIS  MORAL  GOVERNMENT  OVER  ALL  MEN  AND  MORAL 
BEINGS,  AND  TO  CHRIST,  HIS  ATONEMENT,  AND  FORGIVENESS  ON 
ITS  GROUND. 

As  God's  Theocratic  Government  was  only  over  that  one  peo- 
ple and  confined  to  them  in  this  world,  its  declared  sanctions,  like 
those  of  human  governments,  were  to  be  administered  in  this  world; 
and,  of  course,  the  Levitical  priests,  sacrifices,  and  forgivenesses 
were  only  for  them  in  this  world,  and  had  no  efficacy  beyond.  They 
certainly  had  a  great  value  and  iniluence  for  that  people;  but  their 
supreme  value  and  importance  were  in  their  typical  design,  in  what 
they  prefigured  and,  as  if  constant  object-lessons,  represented. 

The  expiatory  animal  sacrifices  for  freeing  transgressors  of  the 
Theocratic  Law  from  bodily  death  represented  the  expiatory  sacri- 
fice of  Christ  for  freeing  the  world  of  sinners  against  God's  eternal 
law  and  government  from  everlasting  penal  death.  The  priesthood 
connected  with  the  Theocratic  government  to  serve  at  its  earthly 
altar  in  behalf  of  transgressors  against  it  represented  Christ,  the 
Great  High  Priest,  officiating  before  God  at  the  heavenly  altar,  in 
connection  with  God's  eternal  moral  government,  in  behalf  of  all 
human  sinners  within  the  reach  of  grace.  The  forgiveness  of  trans- 
gressors against  the  former,  freeing  them  from  its  penalty  of  bodily 
death,  granted  graciously  on  the  basis  of  expiation  by  the  vicarious 


GOD'S  THEOCRATIC  GOVERNMEN-T.  381 

death  and  blood  of  animals,  represented  the  forgiveness  of  sinners 
against  the  latter,  freeing  them  from  its  penalty  of  endless  death, 
granted  graciously  on  the  basis  of  expiation  by  the  vicarious  death 
and  blood  of  Christ.  But  no  symbol  or  type  can,  in  all  respects,  repre- 
sent its  antitype.  It  is  beyond  doubt,  that  subjects  of  God's  Theo- 
cratic "gov  txuviXQWl,  having  transgressed,  might  be  and  perhaps  often 
were  thcocratically  forgiven  by  com]Dlying  outwardly  and  formally 
with  its  required  conditions  of  sacrifice  and  confession,  though  noi 
really  doing  so  in  heart,  while  they  still  continued  unforgiven  for  the 
same  sins,  as  subjects  of  God's  universal  moral  government.  But. 
on  the  other  hand,  although  the  expiation  of  the  Levitical  Sacrifices 
only  availed  to  free  their  offerers  from  the  Theocratic  penalty  of 
bodily  death  or  punishment,  yet  those  who  offered  them  with  gen- 
uine repentance  obtained  also  forgiveness  of  their  sins  as  they 
related  to  God  as  universal  Moral  Governor;  but,  as  such.  He  for- 
gave them  on  the  basis  of  the  real,  antitypical  propitiation  of 
Christ,  typified  by  those  Sacrifices  (Rom.  3:25;  Heb.  9:15)-  With 
such  repentance,  they  doubtless  obtained  this  consummate  forgive- 
ness equally,  whether  they  understood  the  symbolical  and  typical 
prefiguration  by  those  Sacrifices  of  the  future  atonement  of  Christ 
for  "the  sins  of  the  whole  world  "  or  not.  But  we  think  the  really 
pious  of  them  did  generally  understand  more  or  less  this  prefigura- 
tion by  those  Sacrifices,  and  so,  by  faith  in  the  great  future  atone- 
ment, did  consciously  receive  full  forgiveness  from  God  as  Moral 
Governor,  no  less  than  as  Theocratic.  When  David  exclaimed, 
"  Blessed  is  he  whose  transgression  is  forgiven,  whose  sin  is  covered. 
Blessed  is  the  man  unto  whom  the  Lord  imputeth  not  inquity,  and 
irw whose  spirit  there  is  no  guile,"  (Ps.  32:1,  2),  his  exultation  was 
not  merely  because  the  Theocratic  penalty  was  forgiven,  but  because 
the  incomparably  worse  one  of  endless  death,  symbolized  by  the 
bodily, was  also  coinrcdhy  the  great  aati-typical  atonement  of  Christ. 
Nor  was  his  exultation  simply  because  this  was  true  in  his  own  case, 
but  because  it  was  also  true  of  all  the  really  pious  Israelites.  Of 
course,  their  understanding  of  what  was  thus  typified  was  defective, 
compared  with  that  of  intelligent  Christians;  but  it  was  real  and 
precious  to  them,  as  it  made  their  religion  one  of  faith  and  hope,  sup- 
plied them  with  most  inspiring  motives,  and  gave  them  strength  and 
courage  for  the  great  inward  and  outward  conflicts,  which  their  rela- 
tions to  God  and  to  the  whole  heathen  world  compelled  them  to 
maintain.  But,  doubtless,  the  realities  typified  were  all  along  increas- 
ingly discerned  by  the  inspired  prophets  and  leaders  of  the  people, 


382  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

and,  as  declared  by  these,  were  accepted  and  realized  by  the  true 
Israel  among  them. 

§  215.    WHY  FUTURE  REWARDS  AND  PUNISHMENT  WERE    NOT  INCLUDED 
AMONG  THE  SANCTIONS  OF  THE  THEOCRATIC  LAW. 

The  reason  why  future  rewards  and  punishment  were  not  among 
the  declared  sanctions  of  the  Theocratic  Law  was  not  that  Moses 
and  his  people  did  not  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and 
in  these;  for,  by  necessity  of  their  nature,  mankind  have  always 
spontaneously  believed  in  both  it  and  them.  It  was,  that  that  Law 
and  Government  were  necessarily  restricted  to  them  in  this  world, 
although  designed  throughout  to  be  symbolical  and  typical,  so  that 
its  temporal  retributions,  like  all  else  in  it,  were  representative  of 
those  which  are  eternal.  Those,  therefore,  could  not  be  sanctions 
of  the  Law,  either  as  temporal  or  as  typical.  How  could  the  ani- 
mal sacrifices  typify  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  to  redeem  the  world  of 
sinners  from /;<;/«r^  punishment,  if  this  had  been  made  a  sanction 
of  the  typical  law  itself?  It  would  have  made  the  type  and  its  anti- 
type identical,  and  thus  the  type  a  nullity,  by  making  the  relation 
essential  to  its  nature  impossible.  From  the  nature  of  the  case, 
future  retributions,  being  antitypical,  could  not  be  incorporated  in  a 
law,  which  was  designedly  typical — certainly  not,  as  far  as  they  and 
a  way  of  rescue  from  them  were  concerned.  Nothing  can  be  a 
symbol  and  type  of  itself;  and,  if  the  penalty  of  God's  universal 
government  were  also  that  of  His  typical  government,  which  was 
confined  to  that  one  people  and  to  the  period  before  the  advent  of 
Christ,  then  this  common  penalty  could  be  typical  of  nothing;  and, 
if  bodily  death  is  included  in  the  penalty  of  sin  under  God's  uni- 
versal moral  government,  then  neither  could  this  death,  as  part  of 
the  penalty  of  transgression  of  the  Theocratic  Law  and  government, 
be  typical.  And,  further,  as  the  animal  sacrifices  of  the  Theocratic 
government  were  to  rescue  transgressors  of  its  law  from  its  penalty, 
and  did  so  when  properly  offered,  then,  if  its  penalty  and  that  of 
God's  universal  moral  government  are  identical,  they  rescued  them 
from  it,  as  that  of  the  latter,  as  really  as  from  it,  as  that  of  the  for- 
mer; and,  if  so,  what  need  or  place  was  there  for  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  ?  and  how  could  they  be  typical  or  His  antitypical.  The  cer- 
tain fact  is,  that  it  was  only  because  the  Theocratic  government,  its 
penalty,  and  the  expiatory  sacrifices  to  rescue  from  that  penalty 
were  all  for  this  world  only,  and  merely  till  Christ  should  come,  that 
they  were  or  could  be  symbolical  and  typical  of  God's  universal 


LEVI  TIC  A  L  SACRIFICES.  383 

moral  government,  its  penalty,  and  the  expiatory  sacrifice  of  Christ, 
to  rescue  from  that  penalty.  In  our  exposition  of  Rom.  8:18-22, 
in  connection  with  that  of  Gen.  3:16-19,  we  showed  that  bodily 
death  was  not  included  in  that  threatened  in  Gen.  2:17,  but  was 
"appointed,"  "laid  up"  (Heb.  9:27),  to  Adam  and  his  race  for 
Providential  and  disciplinary  purposes  connected  with  the  redemp- 
tive system,  promised  germinally  in  Gen.  3:15.  But  the  doom  to  it, 
and  so  itself,  were  in  consequence  of  Adam's  sin  in  eating  the  for- 
bidden fruit;  so  that  it  was  made  a  perpetual  proof  of  the  sin  of  the 
race  and  symbol  of  the  real  penal  death,  to  which  all  are  exposed. 
We  think  this  shows  just  why  God  could  and  did  make  it,  as  He 
could  not,  if  it  was  included  in  the  real  penalty,  the  type,  in  the 
Levitical  Law,  of  that  penalty,  and  of  substitutional  rescue  from  it 
by  animal  sacrifices,  which  were  types  of  rescue  from  the  real  penal 
death  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ. 

In  this  investigation  of  the  Levitical  Sacrifices,  we  have  omitted 
that  of  the  Passover  (Ex.  12:3-10;  Lev.  23:5,  6;  Num.  9:10-14). 
We  have  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  real  expiatory  and  typical  sacrifice, 
as  well  as  commemorative  of  the  preservation  of  the  first-born  of 
the  Israelites,  when  those  of  the  Egyptians  were  destroyed.  Our 
reason  was,  that  we  could  only  assert  our  view  of  it  without  notic- 
ing the  controversies  concerning  it;  and  that,  in  establishing  the 
expiatory  and  typical  character  of  the  other  animal  sacrifices,  we 
•really  establish  the  same  respecting  this.''' 

§216.    CONCLUSION  OF    THIS    CHAPTER NO    THEORY    TRUE    WHICH  DE- 
NIES THAT  THE  LEVITICAL  SACRIFICES  WERE  EXPIATORY. 

What  we  have  shown  in  this  lengthy  Chapter  demonstrates  that 
no  theory  of  the  design  of  the  Levitical  sacrifices,  which  denies  that 
they  were  substitutional  and  expiatory,  and  thus  the  conditional 
ground  of  Divine  forgiveness,  and  makes  them  simply  expressions 
of  subjective  states  or  exercises  of  any  kind  towards  God,  whether 
that  of  Maurice,  or  any  other,  can  possibly  be  true.  It  is  true,  that 
those  who  offered  them  were  required  to  do  so  in  a  proper  state  of 
mind  towards  God,  not  to  express  this,  whether  it  was  gratitude  for 
His  benefits,  or  repentance  for  sins,  or  inward  consecration,  or  any 
other,  but  to  produce  such  an  effect  in  His  mind  atid  on  His  relatiofts 
to  them  and  to  the  whole  people,  as  their  Theocratic  Ruler,  as 

(*)  For  unanswerable  arguments  that  the  Passover  was  such  a  sacrifice,  see 
Magee,  Vol.  I.,  No.  XXXV.,  pp.  213  229.  Fairbairn,  Vol.  IL,  pp.  442-448. 
Crawford,     *    *    *     respecting  the  Atouement,  pp.  96,  97,  500. 


384  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

would  make  it  consistent  for  Him  to  forgive  them,  releasing  them 
from  the  penalty  they  deserved  and  restoring  them  to  their  forfeited 
place  among  His  people.  The  sin-  and  the  guilt-offerings  were  never  . 
made  for  any  other  purposes;  and  this  was  the  radical  one  of  all 
the  others.  The  direct  designed  end  of  the  two  named  was  never  in 
the  offerers,  never  subjective,  but  always  wholly  out  of  them,  in  God 
and  in  His  relations  as  Theocratic  King;  and  the  radical  end  of  all 
the  rest  was  the  same.  If  we  consider  that  God  instituted  them  as 
the  chief  part  of  His  Theocratic  Law,  and  required  the  people  to 
offer  them  just  as  prescribed  as  long  as  the  Theocracy  should  last; 
and  the  vast  importance  attached  to  them,  as  shown  by  the  law 
■itself,  armed  with  such  sanctions,  and  by  all  the  connected  facts — that 
the  priesthood  was  ordained  Avith  all  its  sacredness  and  authority  to 
serve  the  people  in  offering  them — that  the  Tabernacle,  succeeded 
by  the  temple,  which  was  the  very  heart  of  the  Theocracy,  was 
constructed  according  to  a  pattern  given  to  Moses  on  the  mount  by 
God  Himself  to  be  a  fitting  place  for  offering  them — that  no  sins 
could  be  forgiven  to  any  of  that  people,  except  on  the  condition  ot 
offering  them  with  confession — and  that  we  are  already  taught  that 
they  were  designed  by  God  to  symbolize  and  typify  the  great  real 
sacrificial  offering  of  Christ,  the  High  Priest,  and  the  Tabernacle  or 
temple,  heaven;  if  we  consider  all  this,  what  else  than  utter  absurd- 
ity is  it,  to  reject  the  only  purpose  all  these  sacrifices  ever  had,  as 
all  this  demonstrates,  and  to  attempt  to  substitute  for  it  one  they 
never  had,  as  a  direct  one?  It  is  to  attempt  to  convert  what  God 
designed  to  be  for  that  people  causes  or  means  of  producing  effects  in 
Himself  as  related  to  transgressors  and  to  the  whole  Theocratic 
people  under  Him,  as  Ruler,  into  mere  expressions  towards  Him, 
not  as  the  Ruler,  of  the  subjective  states  or  exercises  of  the  trans- 
gressors, having  no  aim  to  avert  deserved  punishment  by,  and  to 
propitiate  Him!  Being  such,  they  could  neither  be  causes  of  those 
states  or  exercises,  nor  of  any  effects  in  God  or  His  rectoral  relations, 
which  He  could  not  as  well  see  and  have  without  them;  so  that,  if 
this  was  their  purpose,  it  was  one  they  had  no  adaptation  to 
accomplish,  and  really  did  not  accomplish.  Instead  of  having  any 
such  importance  in  them'^nd  in  all  connected  with  them,  as  we  have 
shown,  they  had  none  at  all;  and,  instead  of  there  being  any  good 
reason  why  God  should  have  instituted  the  whole  Levitical  system, 
including  all  mentioned,  there  was  none.  It  was  establishing  a 
mountain,  which  was  to  be  in  constant  labor,  and  yet  never  to  bring 
forth  even  a  ridiculous  mouse. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Teachings  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  concerning  the  Priest- 
hood of  Christ  and  the  Purpose  of  His  offering  Himself  to  God  as  a 
Sacrifice. 

§  217.    THE  FIRST  TWO  CHAPTERS   THE   FOUNDATION  OF  ALL  THAT  FOL- 
LOW;   THE  THREE  OFFICES  OF  CHRIST;    HIS  HIGH  PRIESTHOOD. 

This  Epistle  is  an  inspired  exposition  of  the  typical  meanings 
of  the  sacrificial  offerings  of  the  Levitical  Law,  and  of  their  anti- 
typical  fulfillments  in  the  priesthood  and  sacrifice  of  Christ,  and  in 
the  results  of  these.  Its  teachings  are,  therefore,  inspired  guides  to 
a  correct  understanding  of  all  other  New  Testament  teachings  con- 
cerning the  design  of  the  sufterings  and  death  of  Christ  and  all 
other  essential  points  connected  with  them. 

The  foundation  of  a  correct  exposition  of  this  great  document 
is  laid  in  the  first  Chapter — in  its  assertion  and  proof  of  the  Divin- 
ity of  Christ,  that  He  was  very  God,  the  Creator  of  the  worlds  and 
the  ulDholder  of  all  things  by  the  word  of  His  power;  and  in  the 
second  Chapter,  that  He  became  incarnate  for  the  definite  purpose, 
that,  "by  the  grace  of  God,  He  should  taste  death  for  every  man" 
— that  "  it  behooved  Him  in  all  things  to  be  made  like  unto  His 
brethren,  that  He  might  be  a  merciful  and  faithful  high  priest  in 
things  pertaining  to  God,  to  make  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the 
people."  Except  for  this  purpose,  there  is  not  a  particle  of  evi- 
dence, that  He  ever  would  have  become  incarnate. 

Three  offices  are  ascribed  in  Scripture  to  our  Lord — those  of 
prophet,  king,  and  priest.  Of  these,  the  first  two  are  acted  towards 
men,  the  third,  towards  God  for  men  as  sinners.  As  prophet.  He 
teaches  the  truth  and  will  of  God  related  to  men  and  the  destiny  of 
the  world.  As  king,  He  discharges  the  functions  of  an  infinitely 
wise,  just  and  benevolent  Ruler  for  the  greatest  possible  good  of  His 
people  and  the  world.  As  priest.  He  transacts  with  God  for  men 
"  in  things  pertaining  to  God,"  offering  sacrifice  and  intercession 


386  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

for  them,  and,  as  Mediator  between  God  and  them,  securing  from 
Him  all  possible  favor  to  them.  This  Epistle  is  specially  didactic 
concerning  His  priesthood  aud  sacrifice,  and  all  symbolized  and 
typified  in  the  previous  dispensations,  especially  the  Levitical;  and 
it  is  our  pre-eminent  instructor  concerning  His  priesthood  and  other 
points  connected.  In  it,  Christ  is  seven  times  called  a  priest,  and 
ten  times  a  high  priest;  and  in  numerous  comparisons  of  Him  and 
His  priesthood  with  Melchizedek  and  his,  and  with  the  Aaronic 
priests  and  theirs,  in  direct  arguments  to  prove  that  He  is  a  priest, 
in  ascriptions  to  Him  of  absolute  qualifications  to  be  one,  and  of 
His  fulfilling  the  peculiar  functions  of  one,  we  are  positively  taught, 
not  only  that  He  is  one,  but  one  in  a  far  higher  sense  than  the  Levit- 
ical  priests  were  or  could  be  in,  being  only  shadowy  types  of  Him. 
Nothing  can  be  more  certain,  than  that  this  Author  intended  to 
teach  that  Christ  is  a  priest,  not  in  any  figurative,  metaphorical,  but 
in  the  real,  normal  sense;  and  that  He  is  in  all  respects  immeasur- 
ably superior  to  all  others  ever  appointed  among  men — the  only 
all-perfect,  consummate  one  that  ever  acted  with  God  for  men. 

From  Chapter  2:9-18,  in  verse  17  of  which  Christ  is  first  called 
a  High  Priest,  the  author  draws  the  hortatory  inference  of  Chap. 
3:1,2,  in  which  he  repeats  the  designation  —  "Wherefore,  holy 
brethren,  partakers  of  a  heavenly  calling,  consider  the  Apostle  and 
High  Priest  of  our  confession,  even  Jesus;  who  was  faithful  to  him 
that  appointed  him,  as  also  was  Moses  in  his  (God's)  house."  If 
Christ  is  not  a  High  Priest  in  fact,  but  only  in  a  figurative  sense, 
what  analogy  is  there  between  Him  and  Moses,  whose  office  was  a 
real  one,  as  an  appointed  servant  of  God  in  His  Theocratic  house, 
when  He  was  not  faithful  as  a  High  Priest  at  all?  How  could  the 
comparison  between  them,  continued  to  verse  7,  in  which  the  tran- 
scendant  elevation  of  Christ  above  Moses  is  shown,  be  rationally 
instituted  ?  Any  process  of  exposition  or  reasoning,  which  would 
set  aside  the  fact  of  Christ's  priesthood,  would  equally  that  of  His 
prophetic  or  kingly  office,  and  all  asserted  in  Scripture  respecting 
His  Divine-Human  Person,  His  relations  as  such  to  God  and  man, 
and  all  His  functions  as  the  Saviour  of  men — yes,  everything  that 
men  are  unwilling  to  believe — for  example,  that  He  was  sent  by 
God,  His  Apostle. 

In  Chapter  4:14,  15,  the  author  says:  "Having  then  a  great 
High  Priest,  who  hath  passed  through  the  heavens,  Jesus  the  Son  of 
God,  let  us  hold  fast  our  confession.  For  we  have  not  a  High  Priest 
that  cannot  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities;  but  one 


THE  HIGH  PRIEST.  3§5 

that  hath  been  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin." 
The  adjective,  great,  indicates  His  whole  superiority  to  Aaron  and 
His  successors,  which  is  afterwards  unfolded,  especially  as  He  was 
"the  Son  of  God."  His  greatness  is  shown  farther  by  the  words — 
"  who  hath  passed  through  the  heavens,"  so  that,  "  being  exalted 
above  all  finite  beings  and  localities,"  as  Moll  says,  He  occupies 
His  rightful  place  upon  the  throne  of  God  in  full  participation  oi 
the  Divine  majesty  and  glory.  Verse  15  shows  that,  notwithstand- 
ing this  exaltation,  He  is  not  beyond  the  deepest  sympathy  with 
human  infirmities.  By  His  pure  human  nature,  and  His  experiences 
of  temptations  in  all  points  like  those  of  mankind  while  on  His 
earthly  mission.  He  is  capable  of,  and  has  profound  fellow-feeling 
with  mankind  in  their  weaknesses,  trials,  temptations,  and  sorrows. 
By  what  principles  and  rules  of  interpretation  can  all  this  concern- 
ing His  priesthood  be  construed  otherwise  than  in  the  most  normal, 
real  sense  ? 

§  218.    THE  DEFINITE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  HIGH  PRIEST. 

Chapter  5:4  states  that  "every  high  priest,  taken  from  among 
men,  is  appointed  for  men  in  things  pertaining  to  God,  that  he  may 
offer  both  gifts  and  sacrifices  for  sins;"  being  one  "who  can  bear 
gently  with  the  ignorant  and  erring,  for  that  he  himself  also  is  com- 
passed with  infirmity;  and  by  reason  thereof  is  bound,  as  for  the  peo- 
ple, so  also  for  himself,  to  offer  for  sins.  And  no  man  takes  the  honor 
[of  this  office]  unto  himself,  but  when  he  is  called  of  God,  even  as  was 
Aaron."  This  statement  relates  to  the  Aaronic  high  priests  accord- 
ing to  the  Levitical  Law.  Verses  5-10  relate  to  Christ  and  His 
priesthood.  Verses  5,  6  show,  from  two  Old  Testament  passages, 
that  He,  no  more  than  they,  arrogated  His  office,  but  was  appointed 
by  His  Father  to  be  "  a  Priest  forever  after  the  order  of  Melchize- 
dek,"  not  of  Aaron.  Verses  7,  8  show  that,  like  the  Aaronic  high 
priests,  he  was  "  taken  from  among  men;  "  and,  by  referring  to  His 
terrible  experiences,  His  "  prayers  and  supplications  with  strong 
crying  and  tears  "  in  Gethsemane,  they  set  forth  His  full  participa- 
tion in  human  infirmities,  and  thus  His  perfect  qualification  to  sym- 
pathize and  "bear  gently  with  others  in  their  distresses,  even  'with 
the  ignorant  and.  erring,'  "  but  especially  Avith  all  who  accept  Him  as 
their  High  Priest.  "  For  His  godly  fear  "  shown  in  perfectly  sub- 
mitting to  the  will  of  His  Father  through  all  His  agonizing  "  pray- 
ers and  supplications  with  strong  crying  and  tears,"  He  "  wa: 
heard;  "  and  thus  "  though  He  was  a  Son,  yet  learned  He  obediencj 


3SS  SCRTPTURAL  TnACr/IIVGS  OiV  THE  ATOA'EME.VT. 

by  the  things  which  He  suffered;  and  having  been  made  perfect," 
by  His  obedience  even  to  His  atoning  death  and  His  exaltation  to 
heaven,  He  became  unto  all  them  that  obey  Him  the  author  ot 
eternal  salvation;  named  of  God  a  High  Priest  after  the  order  of 
Melchizedek.  How  absolutely  real  and  void  of  figure  is  this  entire 
statement  1 

§  219.    CHRIST  A  HIGH  PRIEST  AFTER  THE  ORDER  OF  MELCHIZEDEK, 
AND  WHAT  IT  PROVES. 

In  Chap.  6:20,  it  is  said — "Whither  as  a  forerunner,  Jesus 
entered  for  us,  having  become  a  high  priest  forever  after  the  order 
of  Melchizedek."  On  these  words,  Delitzsch  beautifully  says — "As 
the  Aaronic  high  priest,  after  he  had,  in  the  outer  court,  slain  the 
bullock  as  a  sin-offering  for  himself  and  his  house,  and  then  slain 
the  goat  as  a  sin-offering  for  the  congregation,  entered  with  the  blood 
of  the  slaughtered  victim  into  the  typical  holiest  of  all,  so  Jesus, 
after  offering  up  Himself  in  sacrifice  upon  earth,  and  shedding  on 
earth  His  own  blood,  has  entered  into  the  heavenly  holiest  of  all,  in 
order  thereby  to  accomplish,  once  for  all,  an  expiation  on  our 
behalf,  and  there  perpetually  to  represent  us;  but,  at  the  same  time 
(Chap.  10:19-21),  in  order  to  break  the  path  and  to  open  the  way 
for  us,  who  are  eternally  to  be  where  He  is.  That  He  thus,  in  His 
entrance  on  our  behalf,  is  at  the  same  time  our  precursor,  this  it  is 
which  distinguishes  Him  from  the  legal  High  Priest  of  a  community 
that  was  absolutely  excluded  from  the  inner  sanctuary.  And  not 
only  this.  He  is  not  merely  High  Priest,  but  also  King;  and  He  is  a 
High  Priest  not  merely  for  a  season,  but  forever." 

Having  thus  referred  toPs.  110:4 — "The  Lord  hath  sworn,  and  will 
not  repent.  Thou  art  a  priest  forever  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek," 
as  fulfilled  in  Christ,  the  author  shows,  in  Chap.  7:1-10,  the  pecu- 
liarities of  the  narrative  in  Gen.  14:18-24  concerning  Melchizedek, 
both  as  to  what  is,  and  as  to  what  is  not  stated  in  it,  and  how,  by 
reason  of  these,  he  was  a  type  of  Christ.  After  showing  how,  accord- 
ing to  that  record,  he  was  assimilated  typically  to  the  Son  of  God, 
the  author  shows  next,  that  he  was  above  the  great  patriarch,  Abra- 
ham, who  had  received  the  promises,  and  above  the  Levitical  priests 
descended  from  Abraham,  who  recognized  his  superiority  by  giving 
him  tithes  and  receiving  his  blessing;  and  that,  as  he  was  outside 
and  independent  of  the  Israelitish  race,  and  of  the  Theocracy 
established  through  Moses  for  special  and  temporary  purposes,  he 
represented  the  human  race,  including  all  Abraham's  descendants, 


CriRIST.  3S9 

and  was  thus  the  type  of  a  universal  king  and  priest.  The  inference 
for  readers  to  draw  is  that  Christ,  so  typified,  is  a  High  Priest  vastly 
superior  to  the  Aaronic. 

At  verse  11,  he  begins  to  draw  conclusions  of  corresponding 
importance.  One  is,  that  the  appointment  of  this  Melchizedek  priest 
proves  the  incompetence  of  the  Levitical  priesthood  to  secure 
human  salvation;  and  another  is,  that  therefore  it  was  necessary 
that  there  should  be  also  "  a  change  of  the  Law;"  for  it  confined 
the  priesthood  to  the  line  of  Aaron.  But  Christ,  shown  to  be  the 
Melchizedek  priest,  is  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  of  which  "  Moses  spoke 
nothing  concerning  priests."  Thus  the  Levitical  priesthood  and 
Law  were  set  aside  together.  This  change  he  proves  farther  by  the 
fact  that  this  Melchizedek  priest  "has  been  made,  not  after  the  law 
of  a  carnal  commandment,  but  after  the  power  of  an  endless  life," 
so  that,  by  disannulling  that  commandment,  "  a  better  hope  is 
brought  in,  through  which  we  draw  near  to  God."  Then,  farther 
still,  the  priests  of  the  Law  were  made  without  an  oath  [of  God], 
"but  this  High  Priest  with  an  oath  by  Him  that  says  of  Him,  The 
Lord  sware,  etc.;  by  so  much  also  has  Jesus  become  the  surety  of  a 
better  covenant."  He  proves  the  superiority  of  this  High  Priest 
farther  yet  by  the  fact  that  the  Levitical  priests  were  many  in  num- 
ber by  their  successive  deaths,  while  He  abides,  and  His  priesthood 
is  unchangeable.  He  proves  the  same  lastly  both  by  His  absolutely 
sinless  character  and  His  being  made  higher  than  the  heavens,  so 
that  "He  needed  not  daily,  like  those  high  priests,  to  offer  up  sacri- 
fices, first  for  his  own  sins,  and  then  for  the  sins  of  the  people.  For 
the  law  appointeth  men  high  priests,  having  infirmity;  but  the  word 
of  the  oath  appointeth  a  Son,  perfected  for  evermore."  Never  was 
there  a  more  absurd  pretence  of  interpretation  than  that  of  attempt- 
ing to  whiff  away  all  the  teachings  of  this  Epistle,  which  we  have 
noted  respecting  the  actual,  real  priesthood  of  Christ,  by  declaring 
it  only  figurative,  or  it  and  His  sacrifice  together  mere  ^^altar- 
forms'' 

§  220.    CHRIST  THE  ANTITYPE  OF  THE  LEVITICAL  HIGH  PRIEST.      WHERE 
AND  IN  WHAT  COVENANT  HE  MINISTERS. 

Chapter  8:12  says — "  Now,  in  the  things  which  we  are  saying 
the  chief  point  is  this:  We  have  such  a  High  Priest,  who  sat  down 
on  the  riglit  hand  of  the  throne  of  the  Majesty  in  the  heavens,  a 
minister  of  the  sanctuary  and  of  the  true  tabernacle,  which  the  Lord 
pitched,  not  man."     We  here  think  with  Dr.  Kendrick,  translator  of 


390  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Moll's  Commentary  in  the  Lange  series  on  Hebrews,  in  his  inserted 
remarks  on  verse  3,  that  the  author,  having  concluded  his  presen- 
tation of  Christ  as  the  Melchizedek  priest,  predicted  in  Ps.  110:4, 
enters  now  upon  a  presentation  of  Him  as  the  antitype  of  the  Levit- 
ical  high  priests,  evidently  recurring  to  what  he  had  said  in  Chap. 
5:1.  Here,  as  there,  by  saying — "every  high  priest,"  he  points  to 
the  whole  series  of  Aaronic  high  priests;  and  this  is  proved  further 
by  his  going  on  to  show  how  immeasurably  inferior  to  and  different 
from  Him  they  were  in  all  respects,  although  typical  of  Him.  Says 
Dr.  Kendrick — "I  think,  however,  that  it  will  be  found  that  a  close 
analysis  will  sustain  the  view  that  the  passage  is  neither  parenthetical, 
nor  irrelevant,  nor  incidental,  but  introduces  the"  grand  thought  which 
forms  the  theme  of  discussion  through  this  and  the  following  Chap- 
ter, and  that  in  fact  this  states,  and  states  in  its  proper  place,  what 
is  the  vital  point  of  the  whole  Epistle.  Christ's  Melchizedek  Priest- 
hood has  been  previously  considered;  now  comes  the  consideration 
of  His  Aaronic  /«^//-priesthood.  This  is  vital  to  the  subject;  for 
His  mere  Melchizedek  priesthood,  however  intrinsically  majestic 
and  glorious,  would  be  of  no  avail  to  sinners;  He  must  minister  in 
the  heavenly  sanctuary  as  the  counterpart  of  Aaron,  the  Levitical 
high-priest,  and,  as  such,  in  correspondence  with  the  relation,  He 
must  have  something  to  offer.  What  this  is,  is  the  point  now  to  be 
stated,  and  of  which  the  author  only  apparently  loses  sight,  the  point 
towards  which  he  pursues  a  constant,  though  somewhat  indirect 
course,  from  this  to  Chap.  9:11."  With  this  last  sentence  our  view 
does  not  concur,  as  will  be  shown.  Following  this  with  a  statement 
of  the  author's  course  of  thought,  he  closes  by  saying — "Thus  verse 
3  of  Chap.  8  formally  introduces  the  topic  around  which  the  whole 
discussion  turns  from  this  point  to  Chap.  10:19,  where,  in  reality, 
the  grand  argument  of  the  Epistle  terminates." 

We  now  trace  the  author's  argument  as  briefly  as  possible.  He 
first  states  the  general  proposition — "  For  every  high  priest  is  ap- 
pointed to  offer  both  gifts  and  sacrifices,"  and  then  proceeds  to 
argue  from  it — "  Wherefore  it  is  necessary  that  this  High  Priest  also 
have  somewhat  to  offer.  Now,  if  he  were  on  earth,  he  would  not  be 
a  priest  at  all,  seeing  there  are  those  who  offer  the  gifts  according 
to  the  law;  who  serve  that  which  is  a  copy  and  shadow  of  the  heav- 
enly things,  even  as  Moses  is  warned  of  God  when  he  is  about  to 
make  the  tabernacle;  for,  See,  saith  he,  that  thou  make  all  things 
[all  the  altar-forms  included]  according  to  the  pattern  showed  thee 
in  the  mount."     But,  by  being  High  Priest  in  the  heavenly  sanctu- 


THE  TWO  COVEN'ANTS.  39I 

ary,  "Christ  has  obtained  a  ministry  the  more  excellent  [than 
theirs],  by  how  much  also  he  is  mediator  of  a  better  covenant, 
which  has  been  enacted  upon  better  promises."  Then,  after  stating 
that,  "if  the  first  had  been  faultless,"  there  would  have  been  no 
place  for  a  second,  he  quotes  the  prediction  of  Jeremiah  (Chap.  31: 
31-34),  that,  in  the  last  days,  a  new  one,  incomparably  better  than 
the  old,  would  be  substituted  for  it,  and  what  it  would  be.  As  these 
two  covenants  are  connected  with  and  dependent  for  fulfillment  upon 
the  two  priesthoods,  he  legitimately  argues  from  them  and  their  con- 
trasted results,  the  incomparable  superiority  of  the  ministry  of 
Christ,  the  High  Priest  in  the  heavens,  who  is  the  Mediator  of  the 
new,  over  that  of  the  Levitical  high  priests  in  the  earthly  sanctuary, 
who  were  mere  performers  of  the  legal  services  connected  with  the 
old,  which  though,  as  well' as  the  new,  founded  on  Divine  promises, 
was  yet,  even  by  these,  proved  imperfect  and  ready  to  vanish  away. 

,§  221.    THE  GREAT  IMPORT  OF  THE  REFERENCE  TO  THE  TV/0  COVE- 
NANTS. 

Eut  there  is  a  radical  reason  for  his  reference,  at  this  stage  of 
his  argument,  to  these  two  covenants  and  their  comparative  charac- 
ters, so  fundamentally  connected  with  the  two  priesthoods,  which 
most  of  the  commentators  fail  to  see,  and  none  of  them,  as  far  as 
we  know,  has  distinctly  apprehended  and  unfolded.  Verse  3,  as 
Chap.  5:1,  asserts  that  the  function  of  every  high  priest  is  "to  offer 
gifts  and  sacrifices,"  and  these,  as  expiatory,  are  to  free  sinners  from 
the  necessity,  on  condition  of  their  coming  into  the  required  sub- 
jective state,  of  suffering  the  punishment  incurred  by  their  sins. 
This  the  Levitical  high  priests  could  not  do  for  the  Theocratic  peo- 
ple, guilty  of  sin,  by  the  sacrifices  they  offered.  They  could  only 
secure  the  temporal  forgiveness  of  the  particular  transgressions  of 
those  for  whom  they  offered  them.  They  could  not,  by  their  min- 
istry, effect  in  them  any  subjective  renovation.  The  promises  of  the 
covenant  connected  with  their  ministry  were  all  conditioned  on 
obedience  to  the  imposed  commands  or  will  of  God  without  pre- 
venient  and  renovating  grace  to  lead  and  aid  them  to  it  in  any  such 
degree  or  sense  as  that  in  which  it  is  imparted  in  the  new  dispensa- 
tion. As,  therefore,  the  sacrifices  of  those  high  priests  were  not 
effective  for  the  forgiveness  of  sin  as  against  God's  eternal  moral 
government,  nor  for  the  internal  renovation  of  sinners,  the  promises 
of  the  covenant  connected  with  them  were  comparatively  of  quite 
inferior  importance,  being  only  of  temporal  forgiveness  for  viola- 


392  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

tions  of  the  Theocratic  Law,  and  outward  purifications.  In  con- 
trast, Christ,  by  His  more  excellent  ministry  in  the  heavens,  secures, 
not  only  full  forgiveness  of  all  sinners,  who  truly  apply  to  Him  for 
it,  as  violators  of  God's  eternal  law  and  government,  but  the  sub- 
jective renovation  or  jDurification  of  their  hearts  and  characters, 
with  peace  of  conscience  and  hope  of  eternal  life  and  glory;  so 
that  His  ministry  incomparably  excels  theirs.  He  secures  both 
these  for  them — the  first  by  offering  His  perfect  expiatory  sacrifice 
to  God  for  their  sins,  and  the  second,  on  the  basis  of  this,  by  His 
further  ministry  of  mediation  for  them  and  of  sending  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  exercise  His  agency  upon  them,  who  "puts  God's  laws  into 
their  mind  and  writes  them  on  their  heart,"  and  by  securing  to  them 
all  the  other  results  mentioned  in  Jeremiah's  prophecy.  Neither  of 
these,  but  only  copies  and  shadows  of  them,  could  the  Levitical 
high  priests  effect.  It  is  plain,  then,  that  the  introduction  of  the 
matter  of  the  two  covenants  and  of  the  quotation  from  Jeremiah, 
occupying  verses  6-13,  is  not  introducing  something  foreign  to 
the  author's  main  point,  not  a  digression  from,  nor  an  illustration 
of  it,  but  is  a  most  important  and  strenglhening  part  or  auxiliary 
demonstration  of  it.  For  the  point  in  verse  3  is  not,  as  Moll  thinks, 
"  the  necessity  of  priestly  functions  and  acts  to  be  accomplished  by 
Christ,"  and  that  "  He  needs  consequently  for  the  exercise  of  them 
a  heavenly  sanctuary,"  etc.;  for  verse  2  asserts  that  He  is  a  High 
Priest  "  on  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  the  Majesty  in  the  heav- 
ens, a  minister  of  the  Sanctuary,  even  of  the  true  tabernacle,  which 
the  Lord  pitched,  not  man,"  to  only  a  copy  and  shadow  of  which 
(verse  5),  the  Levitical  high  priests  ministered.  It  is  to  show  the 
measureless  superiority  of  His  priesthood  over  theirs.  Verse  3  states 
what  is  common  to  them  and  Him;  and  verses  4  and  5  show  why 
He  could  not  exercise  High  Priestly  functions  on  earth,  and  does  in 
the  heavens  according  to  verse  2.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  He  exer- 
cises them  there,  the  object  of  the  statement  in  verse  6,  that  "  He 
hath  obtained  a  more  excellent  ministry  [than  theirs],  by  how  much 
also  he  is  the  mediator  of  a  better  covenant,  which  has  been  enacted 
upon  better  promises,"  is,  that,  by  quoting  the  prophecy  of  Jere- 
miah respecting  a  new  and  incomparably  better  covenant  than  the 
Levitical  one,  he  may  demonstrate  from  the  Old  Testament  the  meas- 
ureless superiority  of  the  heavenly  High  Priesthood  of  Christ,  the 
Mediator  of  the  new  one,  over  that  of  the  Levitical  high  priests,  the 
servants  of  the  old  one  in  the  earthly  tabernacle,  the  copy  or  figure 
of  the  heavenly,  just  as  before,  by  quoting  Ps.  110:4,  he  had  dem- 


THE  TWO  COVENANTS. 


393 


onstrated  the  same  superiority  from  the  Old  Testament.  The 
measure  of  the  superiority  of  the  covenant  connected  with  and 
mediated  by  Him  over  that  connected  with  and  served  by  them  is 
that  of  the  superiority  of  His  priestly  ministry  over  theirs.  But, 
by  the  quotation  from  Jeremiah,  he  unfolds  the  fundamentally  im- 
portant fact  respecting  His  priestly  ministry,  that,  while  He,  as  well 
as  those  priests,  must  have  somewhat  to  offer  for  expiation  of  the 
sins  of  the  people,  His  offering  alone  is  such,  that,  through  its  vir- 
tue. He  efiects  what  they  never  could,  and  what,  not  being  effected, 
the  offering  would  be  futile,  viz.,  subjective  purification  from  sin. 
That  is,  He  effects  both  expiation  for  men  with  God,  and  the  sub- 
jective renovation  of  all  that  obey  Him;  and  that  He  does  both,  as 
far  as  the  application  of  the  expiation  is  concerned,  at  the  same 
time  is  insisted  upon  throughout  the  whole  contrasted  comparison 
of  His  priesthood  with  theirs.*  It  is  precisely  by  this  more  excel- 
lent priestly  ministry  than  theirs,  to  the  measure  of  His  being 
the  Mediator  of  a  covenant  so  much  better,  and  enacted  on  so 
much  better  promises  than  theirs,  that  the  author  demonstrates  the 
vast  superiority  of  our  Great  High  Priest  in  heaven  over  those  on 
earth.  He  uses  the  word  leiTovpyia,  ministry,  to  signify  that  High 
Priestly  functions  are  not  confined  to  the  one  of  offering  an  expia- 
tory sacrifice,  but  from  this,  as  their  root  or  basis,  spread  out  into 
all  His  farther  doings  by  which  sinners  are  inwardly  rectified,  per- 
fected, and  brought  to  possess  "  the  promised  eternal  inheritance." 
Such,  we  believe,  is  the  true  view  of  this  passage. 

§  222.    CONTRASTED  EXHIBITION  OF  THE    MEANS,  WAY,  AND  EFFECT  OF 
THE  FULFILLMENT  OF  THE  TWO. 

The  beginning  of  Chap.  9  is  connected  with  what  precedes,  and 
presents  a  contrasted  exhibition  of  the  means  and  way  of  securing 
the  fulfillment  of  the  two  covenants.  Verse  i  is  a  concession  respect- 
ing the  old  one,  with  an  intimation  that  it  will  be  shown  to  be  of 
limited  value.  It  says — "  Now  even  the  first  covenant  had  ordi- 
nances of  divine  service,  and  its  sanctuary  of  this  world;"  and  this 
is  followed  by  a  description  of  the  tabernacle  throughout,  and  of 
most  of  its  apparatus  (vs.  2-5).  Into  the  first  part  of  the  tabernacle, 
the  priests  entered  daily,  "accomplishing  the  services  (v.  6);  but 
into  the  second  [part]  the  high  priest  alone,  once  in  the  year,  not 
without  blood,  which  he  offereth  for  himself,  ancV  for  the  errors  of 
the  people"   (v.  7).     A  statement  follows  ot  what  the  Ploly  Ghost 

(*)  9:9,  13  15;  10: 1,  10,  14-18,  19-22, 


394  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

thus  signified,  in  which  the  tabernacle  is  called  "  a  parable  or  figure 
for  the  time  present;  according  to  which  are  offered  both  gifts  and 
sacrifices  that  cannot,  as  touching  the  conscience,  make  the  worship- 
pers perfect,"  the  whole  ritual  being  only  "imposed  until  a  time  of 
reformation."  In  all  this  statement,  the  writer,  as  Dr.  Kendrick 
rightly  maintains,  uses  the  historical  present,  not  to  indicate  his 
own  time,  but  that  of  the  tabernacle  and  the  services  in  it,  including 
that  of  the  substituted  temples.  But  the  significant  import  of  the 
statement  is,  that  the  rigid  exclusion  of  all  the  people  from  the  taber- 
nacle, and  of  all  the  priests,  except  the  high  priest,  from  the  Holy  of 
holies,  and  of  even  Him  from  it,  except  on  an  appointed  annual  day, 
symbolically  showed  that  free  access  to  God  was  not  secured  to 
them  by  the  Levitical  institution,  nor,  on  account  of  their  sin  and 
guilt,  was  possible,  but  that  all,  people,  inferior  priests,  and  even  the 
high  priest,  really  included,  were  separated  from  God,  despite  all 
that  the  functions  of  that  institution  could  accomplish  for  them: 
and  further,  that  the  Levitical  priesthood  and  entire  ritual  were,  in 
respect  to  the  eternal  realities  of  man's  relation,  as  a  sinner,  to  God 
and  His  real  moral  government,  merely  figures  or  typical  represen- 
tations of  what  was  to  be  accomplished  in  and  by  the  one  only  real 
priesthood  and  ministry  of  Christ;  and  so  could  not  effect  either 
expiation  for  sin  as  against  God's  eternal  law  and  government,  or 
regeneration  of  heart  and  character.  Of  course  the  covenant,  con- 
nected v/ith  all  these,  was  equally  defective  and  destined  to  give 
place  to  a  new  and  better  one. 

In  contrast  with  the  contents  of  these  verses,  i-io,  the  author 
now  passes  on  to  show  the  realities,  of  which  the  old  tabernacle, 
priesthood,  and  entire  ritual  were  only  types  and  shadows.  As  it 
was  by  means  of  the  earthly  tabernacle  that  those  priests  performed 
all  their  ministry,  so  it  is  by  means  of  "  the  greater  and  more  perfect 
tabernacle,  not  made  with  hands,  that  is  to  say,  not  of  this  creation," 
that  "  Christ  having  come  a  High  Priest  of  the  good  things  to  come," 
"nor  yet  by  means  of  the  blood  of  goats  and  calves,  but  by  means 
of  his  own  blood,  entered  in  once  for  all  into  the  holy  place,  having 
obtained  eternal  redemption"  (vs.  ii,  12).  The  heavenly  Holy 
Place,  typified  by  that  of  the  earthly  tabernacle,  is  that  in  which 
God  is  represented  as  dwelling,  and  into  it  Christ  has  entered  with 
His  own  blood,  as  an  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 
In  verses  13,  14,  we  have  an  argument  from  the  less  to  the  greater, 
to  show  why  His  blood  has  procured  eternal  redemption: — "  For,  if 
the  blood  of  goats  and  bulls,  and  the  ashes  of  a  heifer  sprinkling 


ADDITIONAL  CONTRASTS.  395 

them  that  have  been  defiled,  sanctify  unto  the  cleanness  of  the 
flesh;  how  much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who  through  the 
eternal  Spirit  offered  Himself  without  blemish  unto  God,  cleanse 
your  conscience  from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God?"  On 
account  of  all  thus  set  forth  in  contrast  with  verse  9,  "  he  is  the 
mediator  of  a  new  covenant,  that,  a  death  having  taken  place  for  the 
redemption  of  the  transgressions  that  were  under  the  first  covenant, 
they  that  have  been  called  may  receive  the  promise  of  the  eternal 
inheritance."  Redemption  is  literally  deliverance  from  captivity, 
bondage,  or  exposure  to  death  by  the  payment  of  a  required  ransom- 
price;  hence  here  from  subjection  to  both  the  penal  consequences 
and  the  bondage  of  sin  by  the  ransom-price  of  the  expiatory  death 
or  blood  of  Christ.  The  Levitical  priests  could  pay  no  such  ransom- 
price  by  their  sacrifices  for  those  under  their  ministry  and  its  cove- 
nant, so  that  there  was  no  redemption  for  any  by  them.  But  Christ, 
the  true  antitypical  High  Priest,  paid  it  by  offering  Himself,  His 
blood,  and  life.  His  death  having  taken  place,  for  all  sinners,  includ- 
ing all  under  the  old  covenant,  and  back  to  the  primal  pair  (Rom. 
3:25).     What  a  measureless  contrast! 

§  223.    ADDITIONAL  CONTRASTS.      A  NUT  INFRANGIBLE  DY  POST-MORTEM 

PROBATIONISTS. 

He  begins  the  passage  in  verses  18-22  by  saying  that  "even  the 
first  covenant  was  not  dedicated  without  blood,"  and  closes  it  by 
saying  that,  "  according  to  the  law,  I  may  almost  say,  all  things  are 
cleansed  with  blood,  and  apart  from  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no 
remission."  In  verse  23,  he  asserts  the  necessity  that  "the  heavenly 
things  themselves"  should  be  cleansed  "with  better  sacrifices  than 
these"  Levitical  ones.  Verses  24-26  exhibit  the  facts  respecting 
the  High  Priestly  sacrifice  of  Christ,  still  keeping  up  the  contrasts 
between  Him  in  making  it  and  them  in  making  theirs.  He  did  not, 
as  they  did,  "  enter  into  a  holy  place  made  with  hands,  like  in  pat- 
tern to  the  true;  but  into  heaven  itself,  now  to  appear  before  the 
face  of  God  for  us;  nor  yet,  that  He  should  offer  Himself  often," 
as  the  Levitical  high  priest  entered  the  holy  place  of  the  tabernacle 
every  year  with  blood  not  his  own;  and  he  shows  what  would  have 
been  necessary  for  Him  to  do  this.  "  But  now  once,"  he  says,  "  at 
the  end  of  the  ages  has  He  been  manifested  to  put  away  sin,  i.  e.,  its 
penalty,  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself."  Verse  27  is  one  which  post- 
mortem probationists  should  well  consider;  for  to  us  it  is  decisive 
against  them.     "  Inasmuch  as  it  is  appointed  unto  men  once  to  die, 


396  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

and  after  this  cometh  judgment,"  not  further  probation  for  any;  so 
(v.  28)  Christ  also,  having  been  once  offered  to  bear  the  sins  of 
many,  shall  appear  a  second  time,  apart  from  sin  [that  is,  without  a 
sin-offering]  to  them  tliat  wait  for  Him,  unto  salvation."  There 
are  numerous  reasons  why  Christ  could  offer  Himself  but  once.  It 
was  both  entirely  unnecessary  and  absolutely  impossible.  It  was 
unnecessary,  because  His  being  offered  once  was  perfectly  sufiicient, 
and  while  no  number  of  repetitions  of  it  could  make  it  more  so, 
they  would  on  the  contrary  imply  its  insufficiency.  It  was  impossi- 
ble, because  His  blood  and  life  being  offered  and  His  body  given 
to  death,  it  was  restored  from  death  a  "body  of  glory"  immortal, 
so  that  He  cannot  come  again  in  the  flesh,  and  pour  out  His  blood 
to  be  offered  in  Heaven  as  atonement  for  sin.  Besides,  as  the  new 
covenant  was  enacted  when  He,  as  the  great  antitypical  High  Priest, 
offered  Himself,  and  all  the  typical  priests  with  their  offerings  and 
the  connected  old  covenant  were  then  annulled,  He  could  in  no  way 
alter  or  improve  this  covenant  or  anything  else  by  offering  Himself 
again.  Then,  as  death,  appointed  unto  all  men,  is  the  finality  of 
their  probation,  to  be  followed  by  the  judgment,  so  the  offering  of 
Christ  once  to  bear  the  sins  of  many  was  the  finality  of  sacrifice  by 
Him,  to  be  followed  by  His  appearing  a  second  time  without  sin,  to 
them  that  w^ait  for  Him,  unto  salvation.  As  the  expression,  "with- 
out sin,"  plainly  refers  antithetically  to  "was  offered  to  bear  the  sins 
of  many,"  we  hold  that  it  can  mean  nothing  else  than  "without 
being  a  sin-offering,"  and  the  whole  preceding  from  verse  26  de- 
mands this  sense,  while  it  and  the  nature  of  the  case  exclude  any 
other.  We  hold,  too,  that  "without,"  and  not  "apart  from,  sin"  of 
the  new  version,  is  the  correct  rendering  of  the  Greek  word  in  this 
place.  The  latter  gives  no  clear  sense.  To  "bear  the  sins  of  many  " 
is  substitutionally  to  suffer  their  punishment,  and  the  word  "sins," 
in  this  standing  form  of  expression,  does  not  mean  transgressions 
or  violations  of  the  law,  but  the  penalties  or  punishments  they  incur, 
which  is  its  sense  in  scores  of  places  in  the  Levitical  Law  in  both 
the  Hebrew,  and  its  Greek  Septuagint  translation,  and  so  in  our 
English  versions  of  the  Bible. 

§  224.    WHY  CHRIST  VOLUNTARILY  CAME  TO  DO  THE  WILL  OF  GOD 

•In  Chap.  10:1-4,  the  author  renewedly  asserts  the  utter  incom- 
petence of  the  Levitical  sacrifices  to  "make. perfect  them  that  draw 
nigh."  He  specially  refers  to  the  great  annual  sacrifices  offered 
continually  for  the  priests  and  the  people.     To  coafirra  this  asser- 


CHRIST.  ^gy 

tion  respecting  them,  he  adduces  two  passages  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, which  teach  the  same.  The  first  is  from  Ps.  40:5-8.  We  hold 
that  David  was  the  author  of  this  Psalm.  Our  author  here  ascribes 
the  passage  quoted  to  Christ  as  if  spoken  by  Him  upon  His  entrance 
into  the  world,  to  show  why  and  the  purpose  for  which  He  comes. 
The  7vhy  is  in  the  words — "Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  wouldst  not, 
But  a  body  didst  thou  prepare  for  me;  In  whole  burnt-offerings  and 
sacrifices  for  sin,  thou  hadst  no  pleasure;"  the.  purpose  is  in  the 
words — "Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  am  come  (In  the  roll  of  the  book  it  is 
written  of  me).  To  do  thy  will,  O  God."  As  God  had  commanded 
these  sacrifices  and  offerings,  we  must,  of  course,  understand  the 
expressions,  "thou  wouldst  not,"  and  "thou  hadst  no  pleasure"  in 
the  qualified  sense,  that,  while  they  were  necessary  for  training  and 
typical  purposes  for  that  people  during  their  continuance.  He  would 
not  have  them  and  had  no  pleasure  in  them  either  as  substitutes  for 
obedience  or  as  in  the  least  necessary  and  valid  for  either  expiation 
of  sin  or  renovation  of  sinners  (as  against  God's  eternal,  moral  law 
and  government),  nor  for  any  purposes  beyond  the  time  of  their 
continuance.  As  effective  for  the  real  redemption  of  men.  He  never 
had  nor  could  have  any  pleasure  in  them,  not  even  when  He 
appointed  them.  But  when  the  time  for  their  antitypical  fulfillment 
by  Christ  and  His  one  all-sufficient,  everlastingly  valid  expiatory 
sacrifice  came,  God  would  not  have  them  and  could  not  have 
pleasure  in  them  any  longer  in  any  sense  or  degree;  and,  by  that 
one  sacrifice,  utterly  discarded  and  abolished  them.  "He  thus  took 
away  the  first,  that  He  might  establish  the  second"  (v.  9).  "By 
which  will  of  God,  we  have  been  sanctified  through  the  offering  of 
the  body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all"  (v.  10).  Verse  11  introduces 
another  contrast  between  the  Levitical  high  priest  and  Christ,  the 
antitypical  one.  That  "priest  stands  ddij  by  day  ministering  and 
offering  oftentimes  the  same  sacrifices,  which  can  never  take  away 
sins;  but  He  when  He  had  offered  one  sacrifice  for  sins  forever,  sat 
down  on  the  right  hand  of  God;  from  henceforth  expecting  till  His 
enemies  be  made  the  footstool  of  His  feet.  For  by  one  offering 
He  has  perfected  forever  them  that  are  sanctified."  That  one  stood 
every  day,  without  rest,  doing  over  and  over  the  same  things,  and 
really  never  accomplishing  their  chief  end;  this  one  did  Plis  by  one 
offering  forever,  and  then  sat  down  a  royal-priest  on  the  right  hand 
of  the  throne  of  the  Majesty  in  the  heavens  in  everlasting  reposeful 
exemption  from  repeating  it,  and  yet  accomplished  by  it  the  end 
for  which  He  did  it — the  perfection  of  them  that  are  sanctified  by 


398  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

the  remission  of  their  sins  and  the  enactment  of  the  new  covenant 
in  and  with  them  (vs.  15-18). 

§  225.    WHAT  THIS  MASTERLY  EPISTLE,  THUS  REVIEWED,  DEMON- 
STRATES. 

Now,  if  any  truth  or  fact  can  possibly  be  expressed  in  language, 
so  that  it  can  be  understood  and  known;  if  there  are  any  definitely 
settled  principles  and  rules  of  interpretation,  by  which  the  actunl 
matter  of  fact,  the  historical,  the  literally  true  can  be  distinguished 
from  the  not  fact,  the  fictitious,  the  figurative,  the  false:  if  there  is 
any  way  to  know  what  is  valid  in  reasonings,  in  comparisons  and 
contrasts,  and  in  the  relations  of  symbols  and  types  to  the  symbol- 
ized and  antitypical;*  if  all  that  can  be  expressed  in  language  is  not 
of  uncertain  meaning;  then  does  this  review  of  this  masterly  Epistle 
respecting  the  Priesthood  and  sacrificial  offering  of  Christ,  and  of 
the  relation  of  these  to  the  Levitical  priests  and  their  sacrifices,  as 
their  types,  and  to  all  connected  with  their  ministry,  establish  be- 
yond all  rational  denial  or  doubt  the  fact,  that  Christ  is,  in  the  most 
normal  and  true  sense  of  the  word,  a  Priest,  and  the  only  absolutely 
real  one  that  ever  existed;  and  that  His  sacrificial  offering  is,  in  the 
same  sense,  and  in  no  other,  the  only  absolutely  real  and  effective 
one  for  the  salvation  of  any  sinner  that  was  ever  offered.  A  priest 
is  a  representative  of  men,  of  all  for  whom  he  acts,  appointed  by 
God  to  act  with  Him  for  them,  and  to  do  so,  as  the  supreme  part  of 
his  function,  by  offering  appointed  sacrifice  for  them  for  the  expia- 
tion of  their  sins;  but,  to  accompany  this  with  intercessions  for 
them,  so  that  He  is  a  mediator  between  God  and  them.  Such  was 
Christ,  who  alone  obtains  from  God  for  any  of  them  from  Adam 
down  forgiveness  of  sin  and  all  favor.  All  other  priests  ever  ap- 
pointed by  God  have  been,  and  have  been  called,  such  only  as  types 
or  prefiguring  symbols  of  Him,  who  in  the  Divine  purpose,  was  both 
their  archetype  and  their  antitype.  The  function  of  the  Aaronic 
priests  pertained  only  to  the  Israelitish  people  under  God's  temporal 
and  temporary  Theocratic  government,  which  itself  was  typical  of 
His  universal  and  eternal  moral  government;  but  the  priestly  func- 
tion of  Christ  pertains  to  all  mankind  as  related  to  this  eternal  gov- 
ernment, and  the  fundamental  thing  in  it  was  His  offering  Himself 
once  as  an  all-sufficient,  unrepeatable  expiatory  sacrifice  for  the  sins 
of  the  whole  world.  All  else  centered  in  and  sprung  from  this;  and^ 
in  establishing  His  Divinely  appointed  priesthood,  this  inspired 
author  established  all  that  pertained  to  it,  and  thus  the  fact  of  His 


SUPPLEMENT.  399 

one  all-sufficient  offering  for  the  redemption  of  all  men  from  the  pen- 
alty and  the  perversion  of  sin  on  condition  of  their  coming  to  Him. 
Hence,  the  so-called  "  altar-forms  "  were  instituted  and  named  as 
copies  and  shadows,  designed  symbols  and  types,  necessarily  exceed- 
ingly imperfect,  but  the  best  that  infinite  wisdom  could  devise,  to 
represent  immeasurably  superior  realities,  facts  and  functions,  in  the 
archetypal  and  antitypical;  so  that  the  priestly  office,  sacrificial 
offering,  expiation,  propitiation,  reconciliation  of  God  to  men,  and 
cleansing  of  them  from  their  sins  and  their  punitive  consequences, 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  are  not  things  of  figure,  but  facts  and  veri- 
ties, of  which  the  so-called  altar-forms  are  only  copies;  and  to  make 
these  copies  the  only  realities,  or  to  turn  the  realities  themselves 
into  copies  or  figures,  is  not  only  to  violate  the  first  principles  of 
interpretation,  but  to  undermine  the  very  Gospel  itself,  leaving  every- 
one to  determine  its  contents  simply  by  caprice.* 

§  226.    SUPPLEMENT  TO  THE  FORGOING  EXPOSITION. 

Derivation  of  the  use  of  words  and  phrases  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment respecting  Christ's  sufferings  and  death  for  the  sins  of  man- 
kind from  the  Septuagint  Greek  Version  of  the  Old  Testament,  and 
the  importance  of  recognizing  this. 

Although  the  vicarious,  expiatory  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  demon- 
strated by  the  teachings  of  this  Epistle,  so  that  further  prool  of  it 
is  really  in  excess,  yet  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  and  truth  stated  in 
our  caption  is  not  only  intrinsically  valuable,  but  highly  important 
for  a  valid  exegesis  of  numerous  passages  in  the  New  Testament.  It 
is  manifest  from  the  teachings  of  this  Epistle,  that  their  language  is, 
to  a  very  great  extent,  derived  from  the  language  and  ritual  of  the 
Levitical  Law,  and  mainly  from  the  Septuagint  Version  of  that  Law, 
and  must  be  interpreted  accordingly.  That  is,  the  antitypical  is 
expressed  in  the  language  and  mode  of  the  typical,  made  perfectl} 
familiar  and  as  if  native  to  the  Apostles  and  all  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament,  as  to  the  Jews  very  commonly,  and  to  our  Lord 
Himself.  When  those  writers  spoke  of  the  Priesthood  and  sacrifice 
of  Christ,  they  commonly  did  so  in  the  language  of  that  version  to 
express  them,  as  God  doubtless  designed  they  should.  To  keep  this 
in  mind  is  an  essential  requisite  of  interpretation  in  the  case;  and, 
in  our  farther  investigations,  we  shall  constantly  proceed  in  accord- 
ance with  it.  To  interpret  the  teachings  concerning  the  antitypical 
without  reference  to  those  concerning  the  typical,  so  as  to  give  them 


(*)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  No.  XXXI.,  pp.  i86-i88;  also  pp.  46,  47. 


40O  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

a  meaning  alien  to  these,  is  to  empty  them  of  their  true  meaning, 
and  is  false  exegesis.  No  one  can,  in  a  scientific  sense,  thor- 
oughly or  to  any  high  degree,  understand  the  Gospel,  except  as 
he  likewise  understands  the  Levitical  ceremonial  law,  although 
it  is  equally  true  that  he  cannot  so  understand  that  law,  except  as 
he  so  understands  the  Gospel;  for  they  are  interwoven,  interdepen- 
dent correlates.  Novum  Testamentuvi  in  vetere  latct;  Vehts  Tes- 
tamcntnm  in  novo  patet.  Hence,  to  determine  the  real  meaning 
of  the  language,  when  it  is  said  that  Christ  offered  Himselt  and 
was  offered  for  sins,  that  He  offered  Himself  a  sacrifice  for 
sins,  that  He  gave  Himself  for  oitr  sins  and  for  us,  that  He  laid 
down  His  life  for  us,  that  He  bore  onr  iniquities,  that  the  iniqui- 
ties of  us  all  were  laid  upon  Him,  that  He  takes  or  bears  the  sin  of 
the  world,  that  He  was  made  sin,  that  He  suffered  for  sins,  that  He 
died  for  our  sins,  that  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  and  for 
those  of  the  whole  world,  that  He  shed  His  blood  for  the  remission  of 
sins,  that  He  ransomed,  redeemed,  and  purchased  us  with  His  blood, 
that  He  purifies  or  cleanses  us  with  His  blood,  and  that  He  made 
reconciliation  for  the  sins  of  the  people — when  these  and  other  sim- 
ilar things  are  said,  we  must  have  reference  to  the  corresponding 
typical  language  and  sacrificial  rites  of  the  Levitical  Law  in  inter- 
preting them,  and  must  interpret  them  under  their  light  and  guid- 
ance. This  seems  to  us  plain  common  sense  in  the  case;  and  we 
should  do  so  the  mor.e,  because  all  required  by  the  law,  the  construc- 
tion of  the  tabernacle,  the  Aaronic  priests  and  all  their  sacrifices 
and  ministrations  constituted  a  systems  of  designed  symbols  and 
types,  which  were  also  really  embodied  prophecies,  to  find  fulfillment 
in  and  through  Christ.  The  truth  and  importance  of  these  remarks 
are  fully  attested  by  the  teachings  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
just  examined. 

Proceeding  now,  as  proposed,  we  specially  notice  the  Greek 
expression  KEpiafiapnaq,  "for  sin,"  and  its  plural,  "for  sins,"  since 
it  is  used,  not  only  in  Heb.  io:6,8,  i8;  13:11,  but  in  Rom.  d>:y, 
Gal.  1:4  (best  authorities);  I.  Pet.  3:18;  T.  John  2:2;  4:10.  In  the 
Levitical  Law,  the  Hebrew  word  nNcn,  chattah,  means  sin,  then 
punishment  deserved  by  it,  and  then  a  sin-offering  as  a  substitute  for 
the  punishment,  in  which  sense  it  is  constantly  used.  In  the  Sep- 
tuagint  Greek  translation,  the  word  diiapna  represents  it  in  all  these 
meanings,  and  in  at  least  144  instances  in  the  last  of  them,  sin-offer- 
ing. After  the  Babylonish  Captivity,  instead  of  the  Hebrew,  the 
Hebrew-Aramaic  language  had  come  to  be  the  common  or  general 


SUPPLEMENT.  4oi 

one  of  the  Jews.  But,  as  a  result  of  the  conquests  of  Alexander  and 
of  the  settlement  and  general  diffusion  of  the  Greeks,  occasioned  by 
these,  in  all  parts  of  Western  Asia,  in  Egypt,  and  on  the  adjoining 
coast  of  the  Meditterranean  Sea,  and  also  partly  as  a  result  of  the 
great  dispersion  of  Jews  in  all  those  countries  and  in  cities  in  them, 
and  of  the  consequent  intercourse  and  contact  into  which  they  were 
brought  with  the  Greeks,  the  Greek  language  had,  long  before  Christ 
came,  come  into  very  common  use  among  the  people  in  all  those 
regions,  including  the  Jews  among  them,  and  in  Palestine  as  one  of 
those  countries,  though  of  course  it  was  everywhere  more  or  less 
corrupted  and  modified  by  the  vernacular  language.  A  translation 
of  the  Old  Testament  into  Greek,  thus  modified  or  changed,  was 
begun  as  early  as  about  280  years  before  Christ,  and  the  last  part 
of  it  was  completed  about  t8o  before  Him,  which  had  early  passed 
into  general  use  among  the  Jews  both  abroad  and  at  home.*  The 
prevalent  extent  to  which  this  translation  was  commonly  used  in  the 
time  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  quota- 
tions from  the  Old  Testament,  made  by  Christ  Himself,  by  the 
Apostles,  and  by  other  writers  of  the  New  Testament,  were  mainly 
at  least  from  it;  and  "  its  language  is  the  mold  in  which  the  thoughts 
and  expressions  of  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists  were  cast."  The 
translation  of  the  Pentateuch  was  made  first,  and  is  much  better 
than  that  of  other  parts;  and  it  was  from  this  that  the  great  mass 
of  the  Jewish  people  learned  the  Levitical  Law,  and  from  it  that 
the  Apostles  and  New  Testament  writers  expressed  the  great 
truths  of  the  Gospel,  of  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  an 
example.  Rev.  William  Selwyn,  D.  D.,  author  of  the  Article  on  the 
Septuagint,  referred  to  in  our  note,  quotes  fr&m  Mr.  Grinfield,  whom 
he  calls  "  one  of  the  most  diligent  students  of  the  Septuagint,"  thalj 
"  the  number  of  direct  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament  in  the 
Gospels,  Acts,  and  Epistles  may  be  estimated  at  350,  of  which  not 
more  than  50  materially  differ  from  the  LXX.  But  the  indirect 
verbal  allusions  would  extend  the  number  to  a  far  greater  amount." 
Now,  considering  all  thus  presented,  as  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists 
were  Jews  and  thus  fully  imbued  with  the  language  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament in  this  Version,  and  as  they  fully  believed  that  Christ  was 
the  Great  Fulfiller  of  the  types  and  shadows  of  the  Levitical  Law, 
is  it  not  absurd  to  suppose  that  they  would  use  the  language  of  the 

(*)  Smith's  Die.  of  Bible,  Vol.  III.,  Art.  Septuagint,  pp.  1200-1210.  Also, 
Vol.  I.,  Art.  Helenist,  pp.  783,  784.  Also,  Winer's  New  Test.  Grammar,  Part  I., 
Revised  Ed.  Schaff's  His.  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  §  153-  Language  and  style 
of  the  New  Testament. 


402  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

law  in  this  Version,  when  they  spoke  of  the  Priesthood  and  sacri- 
ficial deatli  of  Christ  to  atone  for  sin,  in  all  such  expressions  as  we 
have  quoted,  in  any  other  sense  than  the  literal  one,  in  which  they 
are  used  in  it?  Is  it  not  the  only  rational  inference  in  the  case, 
that  they  would  so  use  them  ?  We  accordingly  find  the  Apostle 
Paul  using  the  term  ajiapua  in  this  sense  in  II.  Cor.  5:21 — "Him 
who  knew  no  sin.  Pie  made  to  be  sin  for  us."  In  the  first  clause,  he 
uses  the  term  sin  in  its  primary  sense  of  actual  transgression  of 
God's  law;  in  the  second  clause,  he  plainly  does  not  use  it  in  this 
-sense,  nor  in  that  of  punishment  of  the  guilty,  but  in  that  of  "sin- 
offering  for  us,"  the  only  one  it  can  have  in  the  place;  for,  in  no 
other  sense,  could  he  possibly  be  made  sin  for  us,  or  for  any  other 
object.  It  is  no  objection  to  this,  that  the  word  is  thus  used  in  two 
different  senses  in  the  two  clauses,  since  it  has  these  two  senses,  and 
besides,  it  is  frequent  in  Scripture  to  use  the  same  word  in  two 
senses  in  two  clauses.*  Nor  is  the  use  of  the  term  sm,  as  meaning 
"  sin-offering,"  inconsistent  with  Scriptural  usage,  as  Kling  asserts 
in  his  commentary  m  loco  (Lange  Series),  but  as  we  have  shown,  it 
is  exactly  according  to  it  in  the  Septuagint  Version  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, which  the  Apostle  thoroughly  understood  and  used.  Nor  is 
there  any  inconsistency  between  this  interpretation  and  the  contrast 
— "  that  we  might  become  the  righteousness  of  God  in  him;  "  for  it 
is  the  only  interpretation  which  is  consistent  with  that  contrast. 
Neither  side  of  the  contrast  asserts  an  abstraction,  but  each  a  con- 
crete reality — not  a  subjective,  but  a  constitutive  condition.  Christ's 
being  constituted  sin,  a  sin-offering,  for  us  was  the  necessary  objec- 
tive co7idition  and  means  of  our  becoming  objectively  righteous,  as  it 
respects  the  penal  demand  of  the  law  against  us,  by  justification 
through  faith  in  him,  and,  as  a  consequence,  subjectively  righteous 
by  our  reconciliation  to  God,  initiated  and  maintained  through  the 
same  faith,  by  the  Spirit  brought  to  men  by  that  sin-offering.  His 
being  made  a  sin-offering  for  us  is  the  groutid  of  our  justification, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  of  all  else.  Nor  is  it  of  the  least  importance 
whether  the  Apostle  has  used  the  term  sin  elsewhere  in  this  sense  or 
not;  for  it  is  so  used  in  Heb.  9:28,  and  it  is  certain  that  he  used  it 
in  the  place  under  consideration  with  perfect  knowledge  of  its  mul- 
tifold use  in  the  Septuagint  in  this  sense,  in  which  it  is  not  used  in 
any  other  which  could  at  all  fit  in  this  place.  In  what  other  possi- 
ble sense  could  Christ  be  made  sin?     And,  if  not  in  this,  how  could 


where 


(*)  Mat.  16:25;  Luke  17:33;  John  12:25;  Prov.  3:34;  II.  Sam.  22:26,  anf1  else- 


SUPPLEMENT. 


403 


He,  made  sin  in  any  other,  make  an  expiation  for  us,  or  our  sins  ? 
and  how  could  He  make  this,  if  His  being  made  sin  did  not  imply 
being  made  a  substitution  for  us,  as  a  sin-offering  does?  Is  expia- 
tion without  substitution  possible?  Certainly  not,  nor  without  a 
sin-offering.  And  yet  Kling  denies  that  sin  here  means  sin-offering, 
and  that  Christ's  being  made  sin  for  us  is  to  be  "  taken  in  the 
sense  of  substitution; "  but,  none  the  less,  surprisingly,  imme- 
diately affirms  what  we  believe  is  a  plain  contradiction,  that  the 
clause  expresses  "  the  notion  of  the  llaauoq,  propitiation,"  and  that 
"it  is  in  the  work  of  expiation,  that  we  must  find  the  basis  of  the 
work  of  reconciliation!"*  Enough  on  this  text,  H.  Cor.  5:21. 
Now,  what  is  the  meaning  of  Trfpi  duaprlag  or  its  plural  ?  The  phrase 
is  also  taken  from  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the  law,  in  Avhich 
it  is  usually  employed  when  the  Levitical  Sacrifices  are  said  to  have 
been  "  offered  for  sins,"  and  sacrifice,  or  its  plural  is  understood 
before  it.  Its  meaning  in  all  the  places  referred  to  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  paragraph,  when  applied  to  the  sufferings  and  death  of 
Christ  for  our  sins,  is  determined  by  this  origin,  and  it  is,  that,  by 
these.  He  made  a  sacrifice  for  our  sins  or  for  those  of  the  world.  It 
can  mean  nothing  else.  As,  in  all  the  places  referred  to,  the  action 
of  Christ  in  making  His  sacrifice  is  against  sin  or  sins,  ^cpt  means 
on  account  of,  because  of  it  or  them,  and  signifies  that  His  making  it 
was  necessary  to  remove  it  or  them  from  sinners.  And,  as  the  word 
siji  or  sins  with  ■tepi  cannot  mean  sin-offering,  it  must  mean  specially 
deserved punisJiinent;  and,  as  His  sacrifice  for  it  or  them  is  to  save 
from  this  punishment  for  it  or  them,  it  was  necessarily  in  the  place 
of  the  suffering  of  that  punishment  by  sinners  themselves,  and, 
therefore,  both  substiintional  and  expiatory,  as  all  the  sacrifices  of  the 
Levitical  Law  were.  Conceding  that  Rom.  Z-.-^  means  on  account  of 
sin  in  a  general  sense,  it  must  nevertheless  really  involve  this.  As 
our  sins,  not  His  own,  were  the  cause  or  reason  of  His  sufferings, 
they  had  the  same  relation  to  ours  which  our  own  sufferings  would 
have,  if  the  punishment  were  inflicted  upon  ourselves;  and  what 
else  is  this  in  reality  than  substitution? 

(*)  After  the  above  was  written,  an  Article  was  published  in  the  Bibliotheca 
Sacra,  in  Andover,  in  the  October  number  of  1877,  by  Prof.  John  Morgan,  D.  D., 
in  which  he  adopts  the  interpretation  we  here  oppose.  But  he  has  added  nothing 
to  give  it  validity,  simply  assuming  that  tlie  righteousness  intended  is  entirely  sub- 
jective, for  assuming  which  he  has  no  good  ground.  For  Paul  prevailingly  uses 
the  term  to  signify  objective  righteousness  or  justification,  and  he  overlooks,  as 
Kling  does,  all  that  we  have  shown  respecting  the  derivation  by  the  Apostles  of 
all  such  terms  from  the  Septuagint  translati<in  of  the  Levitical  T^aw,  and  the  whole 
Old  Testament.     But  his  Article  is  extremely  faulty  in  other  respects.     We  do  nqj 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Examination  of  is.  52:13-15;  53:1-12. 

As  we  have  carefully  examined  the  Levitical  Law  concerning 
animal  sacrifices  and  the  typical  design  of  offering  them,  of  the 
priesthood,  and  of  all  else  connected  with  them,  and  also  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  concerning  their  antitypical 
fulfillment  in  and  by  the  Priesthood  and  sacrifice  of  Christ,  so  we 
now  proceed  to  examine  with  the  same  care  the  teachings  of  the 
great  prophecy  of  Isaiah  contained  in  the  Chapters  referred  to  in 
the  above  heading.  These  three  portions  of  God's  inspired  revela- 
tion are  His  three  chief  witnesses  before  men  concerning  His  intent 
and  purpose  in  His  great  measure  for  their  salvation  by  the  atoning 
sufferings  and  death  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  and  their  testimonies, 
separate  and  combined,  are  the  fundamental  ones  of  Scripture  for  a 
correct  and  thorough  understanding  of  this  consummate  subject. 
Those  of  the  first  of  these  witnesses  are  first  in  importance,  no  less 
than  in  time,  and  are  the  underlying  basis  and  the  source  of  the  special 
character  of  those  of  both  the  others,  and  of  all  the  particular  testi- 
monies concerning  the  same  matter  in  both  the  Old  Testament  and 
the  New.  But  those  of  the  passage  of  Isaiah  before  us  are  also  of 
vast  importance  in  their  relation  to  very  many  of  the  particular 
testimonies  of  the  New  Testament  as  the  source  of  their  forms  and 
special  characters;  so  that,  in  order  to  a  correct  and  thorough 
understanding  of  these,  it  is  essential  to  possess  a  like  understanding 
of  them.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  undertake  an  examination  of 
the  testimonies  of  this  prophetic  passage,  since  those  who  reject  the 

see  wherein  it  differs  essentinlly  from  the  view?  of  Dr.  Bushnell;  and  his  overlook- 
ing the  whole  teaching  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  respecting  the  typical  char- 
acter of  the  ceremonial  law  in  reference  to  Christ  as  a  Priest,  and  His  sacrifice, 
and  making  the  atonements  of  Moses  and  Phinehas  the  best  i-epresentation  of 
Christ's,  and  also  his  making  atonement  consist  in  obedience,  instead  of  in  in- 
flicted suffering,  are  entirely  erroneous.  The  Scriptural  Doctrine  of  justification 
is  as  wholly  irreconcilable  with  his  view  as  with  Dr.  Bushnell's. 


THE  BIBLE  405 

substitutional   atonement  of  Christ  invariably  undertake   to  nullify 
them  respecting  it. 

§  227.  MARVELOUS  CHARACTER  OF  THE  BIELE  AND  OF  THIS  PROPHECY. 

The  Bible  is  a  marvelous  book,  and  among  the  many  marvels 
it  contains,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  is  this  53d  Chapter  of 
Isaiah.  It  is  the  highest  peak  in  the  whole  range  of  prophetic 
descriptions  and  delineations  concerning  Christ  and  what  He  should 
undergo  during  His  mission  among  men.  It  was  written  over  700 
years  before  He  came,  probably  within  200  after  Homer  composed 
the  Iliad.  From  the  definiteness  of  its  numerous  declarations  of 
the  manner  in  which  Christ  would  appear  among  men  and  would 
be  regarded  and  treated  by  them — of  His  faultless  character  and 
conduct,  His  patient  submission  to  the  wrongs  and  outrages  they 
would  heap  upon  Him,  His  sufferings  and  the  circumstances  of  a 
most  unrighteous,  cruel,  and  ignominious  death  they  would  inflict 
upon  Him,  His  honorable  burial,  despite  that  death  and  the  design 
of  His  enemies  to  the  contrary,  of  the  part  acted  by  God  towards 
Him  in  all  His  sufferings  to  and  after  His  death,  of  His  implied 
resurrection,  and  subsequent  moral  and  spiritual  victory  and  sway 
over  people,  nations,  and  mighty  Potentates,  increasing  in  all  follow- 
ing time — from  all  these,  it  seems  rather  a  liistory  of  the  real  facts  of 
His  case,  than  a  prophecy  of  them  for  men  to  read  through  the  gen- 
erations of  seven  centuries  until  the  Great  Fulfiller  should  come. 
No  mere  human  sagacity,  conjecture,  or  imagi-nation  could  forecast 
or  scheme  out  the  essential  history  of  one  to  come  at  a  future  time, 
much  less  after  so  many  centuries,  containing  such  an  assemblage 
and  series  of  distinct,  minute,  mostly  unheard  of  and  unlikely  par- 
ticulars, and  foretell  them  as  true  of  him  with  the  least  probability 
that  they  would  even  approximately,  much  less  actually  really  be 
fulfilled  in  him  after  so  long  a  period.  Nor  could  an  imposter,  if 
at  any  time  in  those  seven  centuries  he  had  attempted  to  pass  as 
the  one  thus  foretold,  possibly  have  made  himself  even  seem  to  be 
in  the  relations  and  under  the  conditions  stated,  and  the  subject  of 
all  the  particulp'-s  specified.  To  no  other  person  who  has  lived  since 
this  passage  was  written  by  the  great  prophet  can  it  possibly  apply; 
and  all  the  attempts  of  rejecting  Jews  or  skeptical  critics  to  make 
the  Jewish  people  as  a  whole,  or  the  pious  part  of  them,  or  the  pro- 
phetic order,  personified,  or  any  particular  person,  except  Christ,  at 
any  time  in  those  centuries,  its  designed  subject  bear  their  refutation 
on  their  preposterous  faces,  and  are  intrinsically  rediculous.    Christ, 


4o6  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

and  no  other,  suits  the  die  prepared  so  long  before  to  stamp  him. 
But  it  has  fared  with  this  prophecy,  as  with  Him,  at  the  hands  of 
rejecters,  who  have  misconstrued  it,  passed  false  judgments  on  its 
meanings,  and  attempted  to  "set  it  at  nought"  and  to  destroy  it  as 
a  prophec)'  of  Him.  All  their  attempts  have  been  vain.  For  cent- 
uries it  has  been  like  some  great  fortress  at  a  point  vitally  important 
for  the  protection  of  a  nation  or  a  city,  for  and  against  which  battles 
have  been  fought  almost  continually;  and  this,  because  those  en- 
gaged in  the  conflict  have  been  for  and  against  Christ  and  His 
atonement.  But  it  is  a  fortress  that  never  has  been  and  never  will 
be  lost;  nor  even  damaged  by  its  assailants,  because  no  efforts  can 
ever  rob  language  of  its  true  meaning.  Despite  all  the  endeavors 
of  pseudo-criticism  to  the  contrary,  we  confidently  hold  that  Isaiah 
alone  was  its  real  author;  and  we  now  proceed  to  examine  it. 

Chap.  53  ought  to  have  begun  with  the  last  three  verses  of  Chap 
52,  which  introduce  the  topic  continued  to  53:12.  In  these  three 
verses  God  is  introduced  as  the  speaker,  addressing  the  people  who 
read  or  heard  the  prophecy  concerning  the  Messiah,  whom  He 
designates  "my  servant,"  and  calls  them  to  behold.  In  verse  13, 
He  declares  the  greatness  of  His  future  exaltation.  In  verses  14,  15, 
He  places  in  contrast  with  His  first  condition,  and  the  astonishment 
of  many  at  him  which  it  would  cause,  which  the  prophet  depicls  in 
a  parenthesis,  the  peerless  spiritual  elevation  and  power  He  would 
attain,  and  the  effects  and  impressions  these  would  cause  to  many 
nations  and  kings.  Such  is  the  prophet's  introductory  statement  of 
the  theme  of  Chap.  53:1-12. 

We  must  think  the  interpretation  of  those  who  take  53:1  as 
■intended  by  the  prophet  to  express  what  the  Israelite  people  say 
respecting  the  report  or  announcement  made  to  them  concerning 
this  Servant  of  God  and  His  hand  or  power  in  Him  not  the  correct 
one.  We  must  believe  with  Calvin,  Hengstenberg,  and  many  others, 
that  the  prophet  himself  is  the  speaker,  though  as  if  in  company  "with 
all  the  heralds  of  the  Messiah."  He  speaks  as  if  present  with  the 
Jews  when  Christ  was,  witnessing  their  unbelief  and  how  they  regarded 
and  treated  Him  and  his  own  announcement  or  report  concerning 
Him  and  God's  power  in  Him.  He  may  also  have  seen  in  prophetic 
vision  how  great  masses  of  the  world  in  following  generations  would 
maintain  the  same  blind  unbelief  and  essential  course  respecting  Him. 

Verse  2.  The  prophet,  still  speaking  as  if  among  the  Jews  from 
the  coming  of  the  Messiah  till  after  the  close  of  His  earthly  mission, 
states  figuratively  how  He  came  and  how  He  appeared  to  them  on 


SEVERAL  MEANINGS.  407 

account  of  so  coming,  which  was  in  perfect  contrast  with  their  im- 
maginary  expectation  of  what  it  would  be. 

Verse  3  states  how  He  was  consequently  regarded,  despised, 
and  treated  with  scorn  by  them.  Verses  2,  3  together  apply  clearly 
to  Christ,  and  to  the  people  and  rulers  of  the  Jews,  and  to  no  others, 
as  all  in  the  Gospel  naratives  demonstrates. 

In  verses  4-10,  the  prophet,  speaking  for  him'self  and  as  if  for 
all  who  have  become  believers  and  attained  correct  views  of  Christ 
against  the  false  ones  of  His  despising,  abusing,  persecuting  enemies, 
states  w/ij  He  was  such  a  one — that,  according  to  God's  design,  all 
respecting  and  in  Him  and  His  course,  for  which  they  despised, 
persecuted,  and  inflicted  sufferings  upon  Him,  was  without  any  fault 
in  Him,  and  wholly  for  them  and  all  sinners  to  save  them  from  the 
punishment  deserved  by  their  sins,  He  being  a  substitute  and  sacri- 
fice for  them. 

§  228.    MEANING  OF  THE    HEBREW    VERB    §^C'^  OF  THIS  VERSE — AND 

OF  MAT.  8:17.      "^   "^ 

Verse  4  is  the  portal  to  those  that  follow.  It  begins  to  show 
what  was  true  of  Him.  "Surely  he  hath  borne  our  griefs,  and  car- 
ried our  sorrows"  is  the  first  half  of  the  verse.  Lowth  renders  it — 
"Surely  our  infirmities  he  hath  borne:  And  our  sorrows,  he  hath 
carried  them."  Hengstenberg  renders  it — "  But  he  bare  our  sick- 
nesses, and  took  our  pains  upon  himself."  We  may  see  for  ourselves 
by  examining  its  chief  terms,  beginning  with  the  Hebrew  verb 
^C^J ,  nasa.  According  to  Gesenius  (Heb.  Lex.),  it  primarily 
means,  to  take  itp,  to  lift  up,  to  raise,  as  one  does  a  weight  or  burden. 
Then  very  frequently  it  means,  to  bear,  to  carry.  Then,  it  means,  to 
endure;  and  hence,  to  bear  with,  that  is,  to  suffer,  to  permit  (Job 
21:3).  Then,  when  followed  by  "i1>7 ,  sin,  guilt,  iniquity,  crime,  it 
means,  to  bear  it,  that  is,  to  suffer  the  punishment  of  it.  If  one  takes 
on  himself  to  bear  the  sin  or  guilt  of  another  or  others,  it  is  to  bear 
or  suffer  its  punishment.  He  refers  to  Is.  53:12;  Ez.  18:19,  2°j  ^^ 
which  we  add  Num.  14:33;  30:15;  Lam.  5:7.  To  bear  one's  oion  sin 
is  to  suffer  its  punishment  himself*  Then  it  means  to  expiate  the 
sin  or  guilt  of  one  or  many  by  a  sacrifice  as  a  priest  does  (Lev.  10: 
17);  and  to  forgive  or  to  pardon  sin  (Ps.  32:5;  85:3;  Job  7:21;  Gen. 
50:17).  The  adverb  away  is  no  part  of  the  meaning  of  this  verb, 
unless   in  that   last   specified.     Even  in  that,  it  is  to  depart  from  its 

(*)  Lev.   5:1,    17;  7:18;  17:16;   19:8;  20:17,   19,   20;  24:15;    Num.   5:31;  9:13; 
14:34;  18:1;  £2,23:35;  Job  34:31. 


4.oZ  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

essential  meaning  to  say  that  either  to  expiate,  as  a  priest  does,  or 
to  forgive  signifies  or  inckides  to  take  azvay.     The   real  meaning  of 
both  these  expressions  is,  according  to  the  radical  one,  to  take  up, 
to  lift  lip,  to  raise  off  the  guilty  one,  the  burden  of  punishment 
deserved   by  him.     Certainly,  away  never  belongs   to  it  when  its 
object  is  sin,  iniquity,  transgressions,  or  disgrace,  reproach,  shame,  or 
anything  deemed  punishment  for  sin.     Magee  says — "We  find  it, 
when  joined  with  the  word  sin,  constantly  used  throughout  Scrip- 
ture, either  in  the  sense  of  forgiving  it,  on  the  one  hand,  or  of  sus- 
taining, either  directly  or  in  figure,  the  penal  consequences  of  it,  on 
the  other.     Of  this  latter  sense,  I  find  not  less  than  37  instances, 
exclusive  of  this  Chapter  of  Isaiah,  in  all  which,  bearing  the  burden 
of  sins,  so  as  to  be  rendered  liable  to  suffer  on   account  of  them, 
seems  clearly  and  unequivocally  expressed.     In  most  cases  it  implies 
punishment  endured  or  incurred:  whilst,  in  some  {t\^,  it  imports  no 
more  than  a  representation  of  that  punishment;  as  in  the  case  of  the 
scape-goat,  and  in  that  of  Ezekiel  lying  on  his  side,   and  thereby 
bearing  the  iniquity,  i.  e.,  representing  the   punishment   due   to   the 
iniquity,  of  the  house  of  Israel.     But  in  no  one  of  all  this  number  can 
it  be  said  to  admit  the  signification  of  carrying  azvay,  uwle^?,  perhaps 
in  the  case  of  the  scape-goat.  Lev.  16:22,  and  in  that  of  the  priests, 
Ex.  28:38  and  Lev.  10:17;  and  of  these  no  more  can  be  alleged,  than 
that  they  may  be  so  interpreted.     To  these  instances  of  the  word 
nasa  connected  with  chattah,  navon,  sins,  iniquities,  etc.,  may  fairly 
be  added  those  in  which  it  stands  connected  with  the  Hebrew  words, 
meaning  disgrace,  reproach,  sliame,  etc.,  of  which  there  are  iS  to  be 
found:  and  in  all  of  them,  as  before,  the  word  is  used  in  the  sense  of 
enduring,  suffering.    The  idea,  therefore,  of  a  burden  to  be  sustained  is 
evidently  contained  in  all  these  passages.  Of  the  former  sense  of  the 
word  when  connected  with  sins,  iniquities,  offences,  either  expressed  or 
understood,  namely  that  oi  forgiving,  there  are  22;  in  all  which  cases 
the  nominative  of  the  word  7iasa  is  the  person  who  was  to  grant  for- 
giveness.    To  forgive,  then,  on  the  part  of  him  who  had  the  power 
so  to  do;  and  to  sustain,  on  the  part  of  him  who  was  deemed  actu- 
ally or  figuratively  the  offender,  seem  to  exhaust  the  significations 
of  the  word  nasa,  when  connected  with   sins,   transgressions,   and 
words  of  like  import."*    He  states,  as  the  result  of  his  investigation 
of  this  word,  "  That  the  word  nasa,  when  connected  with  the  word 
sins,  or  iniquities,  is  throughout  the  entire  Bible  to  be  understood  in 
one  of  these  two  significations:  bearing,  i.  e.,  sustaining,  on  the  one 
(*)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  No.  42,  pp.  300,  301. 


SEVERAL  MEANINGS.  409 

hand;  and  forgiving,  on  the  other;  and  that,  in  neither  of  these 
applications  does  there  seem  to  be  any  reason  for  interpreting  it  in 
the  sense  of  bearing  away;  nor  has  any  one  unequivocal  instance  of 
its  use  in  that  sense  been  adduced."*  Respecting  this  word,  Heng- 
stenberg  says — "  Some  would  translate  it  abstulit,  removit,  but  in 
opposition  to  the  whole  context  [/.  e.,  of  v.  4],  and  the  parallelism 
with  7!!3D-  The  members  are  entirely  synonymous,  and  only  differ 
in  words.  Moreover,  the  verb  nasa,  in  connection  with  sin,  else- 
where means,  to  bear  it  or  the  punishment  of  it;  see  Ez.  18:19 — 
"The  son  shall  not  bear  the  sin  of  the  father."  Num.  14:33;  Lev. 
5:1;   20:17.      Alex.  f^cp".      Sym.  ave;ia,S£."t 

The  Hebrew  word,  rendered  griefs  in  our  version,  primarily 
means  sickness,  disease;  then  anxiety,  affliction,  grief  We  omit  refer- 
ences as  unnecessary.  It  is  never  rendered  sin  in  our  version.  In 
the  Septuagint  it  is  rendered  aaapriai;,  sins,  in  this  place.  But 
Magee  says — "  There  seems  little  reason  to  doubt  from  what  Dr. 
Kennicott  has  advanced  in  his  Diss.  Gen.  §  79,  that  this  is  a  corrup- 
tion which  has  crept  into  the  later  copies  of  the  Greek;  the  old 
Italic  (as  collected  from  Augustine,  Tertullian,  and  Athanasius),  as 
well  as  St.  Matthew,  reading  the  word  a-adsveiac,  and  thereby  prov- 
ing the  early  state  of  that  version.  Besides,  Dr.  Owen  mentions 
two  MSS.,  that  read  at  this  day  aoOeveiac,  and  one  fia?.aKiar.  *  ■'•'■  ■■'■ 
I  find  also,  that,  in  93  instances,  in  which  the  word  here  translated 
a/iapua^.  Or  its  kindred  verb,  is  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  in 
any  sense  that  is  not  entirely  foreign  from  the  passage  before  us, 
there  occurs  but  this  one  in  which  the  word  is  so  rendered;  it  being 
in  all  other  cases  expressed  by  aaOeveia,  /m?iai<.ia,  or  some  word  de- 
denoting  bodily  disease."  |  He  shows  by  many  other  authorities 
that  the  Hebrew  word  here  denotes  bodily  diseases  or  infirmities, 
and  not  "griefs."  "There  can  be  no  doubt,"  says  Barnes,  in  loco, 
"that  Matthew  has  used  the  passage,  not  by  way  of  accommodation, 
but  in  the  true  sense  in  which  it  is  used  by  Isaiah."  Magee,  incon- 
sistently with  what  he  abundantly  proved  as  to  the  meaning  of  nasa, 
hath  borne,  expresses  the  opinion  that,  in  this  place,  it  includes  in 
its  meaning  the  adverb  away;  but  Hengstenberg  rightly  denies  it. 
The  sense  of  the  clause,  then,  is — '■'  He  hath  borne  our  sickness,  or 
bodily  infirmities.^' 


(*)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  No.  42,  pp.  309,  310. 
(f)  Cbristology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  514. 
(t)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  p.  287, 


4IO  SCRIPTURAL  TEACrilNGS  ON'  THE  ATONEMENT. 

%  229.    MEANING  OF  THE  HEBREW  VERB  'P^O'  SABHAL. 

Let  US  consider  the  next  clause,  or  member  of  the  parallel — 
"And  carried  our  sorrows."  The  Hebrew  verb,  rendered  r^rrzV^, 
is  sabJial.  According  to  Gesenius'  Heb.  Lex.,  it  primarily  means, 
to  bear,  to  carry,  i.  e.,  heavy  burdens;  then  tropically,  to  bear  the 
sins,  sorrows,  etc.,  of  any  one,  i.  e.,  to  suffer  the  punishment  which 
another  has  deserved,  as  in  this  clause,  in  verse  ri,  and  in  Lam. 
5:7.  Magee  says — "The  word,  or  its  derivative  noun,  occurs  in 
26  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  one  of  which  is  the  verse  now 
under  examination:  two  others  relate  to  sins — one  the  nth  verse  Oi 
this  Chapter;  the  other.  Lam.  5:7;  and  the  remaining  23  belong  lit- 
erally to  bearing  burdens  on  the  shoulders."  He  adds  proof  beyon^ 
measure  from  Scripture,  the  Jerusalem  Targum,  and  numerous  old 
versions  and  interpreters,  as  well  as  from  others  down  to  his  own 
time,  that  the  verb  means  simply  and  only  to  bear,  to  carry  burdens, 
whether  literal  or  figurative,  and  never  includes  the  meaning  away, 
although  that  may  be  a  consequence.'''  The  Lexicon  admits  no 
other  meaning. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  name  the  Hebrew  noun  rendered  sorroic 
in  our  version.  It  primarily  means  %\vc\\Ay  pain;  and  then  figura- 
tively/cz///  of  mind,  sorrow,  grief.  It  is  in  this  sense,  that  it  is  to  be 
understood  here.  Barnes,  on  the  clause,  says:  "  Perhaps  the  proper 
difference  between  this  word  and  the  word  translated  griefs  is,  tha 
this  refers  to  pains  of  the  mind,  that,  of  the  body;  this  to  anguish, 
anxiety,  or  trouble  of  soul;  that  to  bodily  infirmity  and  disease." 
Hengstenberg  says:  "  Our  sickness,  our  fains  are  an  image  of  the 
outward  and  inward  sufferings,  which  the  Messiah  should  undergo 
in  our  stead,  and  thereby  deliver  us  from  the  punishment  of  our 
sins."  Magee  says:  " The  antithetical  clause  relates,  not  to  bodily 
pains  and  distempers,  but  to  the  diseases  and  torments  of  the  mind; ' 
and  having  referred  to  a  number  of  Scriptural  texts,  in  which  "  it  is 
evidently  so  interpreted,"  and  adduced  numerous  authorities  of 
greatest  weight,  that  this  is  its  only  proper  meaning  here,  he  adds: 
"  I  find,  that  of  about  30  passages  of  Scripture,  exclusive  of  the  one 
at  present  before  us,  in  which  the  word,  or  its  kindred  verb  is  found, 
there  is  scarcely  one  that  bears  any  relation  whatever  to  bodily  dis- 
ease." f  Beyond  intelligent  question,  the  clause  means:  "  And  our 
sorroius  he  hath  carried  " — /.  e.,  as  a  burden.     Away  does  not  belong 

(*)  Magee,  Vol.   i.,  p.  2S7. 

(\)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  288,  289. 


§§    230,    2J7.  4" 

to  the  verb  in  it;  nor  does  it  mean  removing,  or  anything  but  bear- 
ing or  carrying  a  burden. 

§  230.    MATTHEW'S  GREEK    OF    CHAP.  8:17   AN    EXACT  TRANSLATION    OF 

IS.  53:4. 
According  to  this  showing  of  the  meaning  of  the  language  of 
this  4th  verse,  the  passage  in  Mat.  8:17  renders  it  exactly  according 
to  the  original  Hebrew.  He  translates  nasa  in  the  first  clause  by 
laujSdvav,  to  take,  to  lake  upon  one's  self,  to  assume,  to  bear,  and  the 
noun,  incorrectly  rendered  griefs  in  our  version,  as  it  properly 
means  sickness,  diseases,  by  aaQtvEiaQ,  infirmities,  sicknesses;  and  he 
translates  sablial  in  the  second  clause  by  ^aa-a^u,  to  bear,  to  carry, 
and  the  noun,  incorrectly  rendered  sicknesses  in  our  version,  as  it 
properly  means  sorrows  by  vr.novr^  which,  in  its  secondary  sense, 
means  pains,  sorrows,  eviis.''''  The  Greek  verb  lauSdvu  is  the  one 
by  which  nasa  is  constantly  rendered  by  the  Seventy  in  those  cases  in 
which  the  actual  bearing  of  sins,  /.  e.,  of  their  punitive  consequences 
is  concerned;  and,  in  none  of  these  does  it  ever  mean  bear  away, 
but  simply  bear.  Now,  when  we  remember  that  it  was  the  common 
belief  of  the  Jews,  as  we  have  shown  in  a  preceding  place  and  in 
the  note  there,  that  sicknesses  or  bodily  ailments  are  punishments 
from  God  for  sin,  we  see  exactly  why  this  verb,  instead  of  one  mean- 
ing to  take,  or  bear,  away,  or  to  remove  sin,  was  used  by  Matthew; 
and  why  Isaiah  used  nasa,  which  means  only  bear  or  carry.  If  sick- 
nesses or  bodily  infirmities  are  Divine  punishments  for  sin,  then,  as 
sinners'  themselves,  bear  them  as  a  burden,  just  as  they  do  their  sor- 
rows, so  Christ  can  take  them  on  Himself,  or  bear  them  in  the  same, 
and  in  no  other  way.  This  Isaiah  prophesied  the  Messiah  would 
do,  and  Matthew  quotes  him  in  an  exact  translation. 

§  231.    HOW  ONLY  CHRIST  TOOK  AND    BORE    THE    SICKNESSES  AND  SOR- 
ROWS   OF  MEN. 

How  did  Christ  do  this  ?  We  answer,  first,  not  by  curing  them 
miraculously;  for  He  cured  comparatively  very  few  even  of  the 
Jews,  and  they  only  of  those  living  while  He  wrought  miracles, 
whereas  the  clause  under  consideration  is  unlimited  in  application. 
He  took  or  bore  those  of  each,  especially  of  each  believer,  of  all 
the  generations  of  mankind— of  each  not  cured,  as  really  as  of  each 
cured,  by  miracle — a  consideration  universally  overlooked,  as  far  as 
we  know,  by  interpreters  of  this  translated  quotation  by  Matthew 


(*)  Rob.  N.  T.  Lex 


412  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

from  the  prophet,  and  yet  radically  important  to  a  correct  under- 
standing of  it.  For,  it  is  on  the  ground  of  the  assumed  limitation 
of  the  application  of  this  quotation  by  Matthew  to  those  only  who 
were  miraculously  healed  by  Christ,  that  the  translation  of  both 
nasa  and  Inu^uvi^  by  hearing  aiuay  or  taking  atvay,  is  founded  to 
support  the  denial  of  the  vicarious  import  of  both  these  words. 
Matthew  makes  no  such  limitation.  His  object  in  the  quotation  is 
simply  to  show  from  the  miraculous  cures  wrought  by  Christ,  includ- 
ing the  casting  out  of  evil  spirits  by  a  word,  that  He  was  really  the 
Messiah  predicted  by  Isaiah,  53:4,  and  throughout  the  prophecy. 
He  neither  says  nor  implies  that  these  miraculous  cures  are  the  way 
:n  which  He  would  or  did  bear  or  take  men's  sicknesses;  for  they 
are  not  the  way  in  which  He  bears  or  takes  those  of  the  bulk  of 
mankind  or  of  believers.  It  was  simply  to  show,  that  they  were 
done  by  Him  in  the  way  predicted  by  the  prophet,  and  so  that  He 
was  the  Messiah  foretold  by  Him.  That  way  the  prophet  shows 
through  the  remainder  of  the  Chapter;  and,  as  Matthew  afterwards 
^Chap.  20:28,  with  which  compare  Is.  53:10)  records  the  words  of 
Christ,  that  "he  came  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many,"  he  coul'' 
not  here  intend  to  deny  that  fundamental  fact,  and  to  substitute  for 
it  that  of  merely  miraculously  curing  the  bodily  ailments  of  com- 
Daratively  a  few  in  the  brief  time  of  His  ministry.  Let  this  be 
noted,  that  our  sicknesses  and  sorrows  are  not  stated  as  all  He  bore, 
nor  that  He  bore  them  by  curing  them;  for  He  did  this  by  His 
Divine  power  without  suffering,  whereas  bearing,  as  shown,  is  en- 
tirely suffering.  The  words  can  have  no  other  sense  in  this  place. 
But  He  actually  did  perform  those  miraculous  cures;  and  therefore, 
secondly,  in  answer  to  the  question  at  the  beginning  of  this  para- 
graph, His  bearing  or  taking  our  sicknesses  and  sorrows  was  not 
done  by  His  sympathizing  with,  or  entering  Himself  into,  them  by 
fellow  feeling  with  the  sufferers.  Doing  this  would  not  cure  them, 
however  it  might  comfort  and  inspirit  them  to  endure  them.  To 
make  Christ's  doing  this  what  is  meant  by  His  bearing  them  is  to 
reduce  it  to  a  very  trivial  matter  in  comparison  with  the  great  im- 
portance attached  to  it  by  the  prophet's  specializing  it  in  connec- 
tion with  the  preceding  and  following  context.  When  He  bore  our 
sins,  the  burden  was  simply  their  penal  consequences;  and  it  was  to 
provide  a  ground  and  means  for  their  total  removal  from  us.  He 
no  more  did  this  in  the  cases  of  those  whom  He  miraculously  cured 
during  His  ministry,  than  in  those  of  all  believers  and  potentially  of 
all  men.     It  was  only  on  the  basis  of  the  atonement,  which  He  came 


^■S-  53  ■■4-  413 

into  tJie  world  to  make  for  the  sins  of  all  men,  that  He  wrongJit  all 
His  miraculous  cures  and  ejectments  of  possessing  devils,  as  well  as 
His  raisings  of  the  dead  to  life.  These  miracles  were  simply  results 
beforehand  of  that  atonement;  and,  except  on  its  basis,  not  one  of 
them  would  or  morally  could  have  been  wrought.  They  were  there- 
fore visible  proofs  and  demonstrations  of  the  reality  of  His  bearing 
the  sins  of  men  in  His  soon-coming  vicarious  suffering,  the  virtue 
of  which  was  the  same  as  if  He  had  already  endured  it,  and  which 
itself  was  doubtless  ever  present  to  His  mind  in  working  them,  as 
the  cost  to  Himself  of  so  doing.  He  thus  anticipatively  bore  them 
vicariously,  which  was  the  ground  of  His  removing  them  miracu- 
lously. His  sympathy  with  those  whom  He  cured,  freed  from  pos- 
sessing devils,  and  restored  to  bodily  life,  was  only  a  part  of  that 
infinitely  greater  sympathy  He  had  with  all  mankind,  which  led  Him 
to  give  His  life  a  ransom,  i.  e.,  an  atonement,  a  cover,  for  many; 
and  those  restoring  acts  were  only  specimens  and  preludes  of  all  He 
would  do  for  them,  especially  for  believers,  to  the  end  of  time,  and 
for  the  latter  in  the  resurrection  and  forever. 

We  have  thus  a  clear  explanation  of  these  words  of  the  prophet 
in  perfect  consistency  with  all  their  context,  and  no  less  of  Matthew's 
quotation  of  them  in  consistency  v/ith  the  same;  and,  as  to  the 
formula,  "that  it  might  be  fulfilled,"  etc.,  by  which  Matthew  intro- 
duces the  quotation,  every  interpreter  knows  how  he  commonly 
uses  it,  and  that  it  in  no  way  invalidates  this  exposition  of  the  first 
:'art  of  this  verse,  which  we  close  with  the  remark,  that  Christ's 
carrying  our  sorrows  must  also  be  understood  as  equally  unrestricted 
in  application,  and  therefore  in  the  same  radical,  vicarious  sense; 
and  the  more  because  pan-n^^  can  only  mean  just  what  the  Hebrew 
verb  sabhal  does,  /.  e.,  to  bear  or  to  carry,  as  a  burden. 

§  232.  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  SECOND  PART  OF  IS.  53:4. 

This  interpretation  of  the  Apostle's  quotation  of  the  first  part 
of  Is.  53:4  is  further  established  by  the  second  part — "yet  we  did 
esteem  him  stricken,  smitten  of  God,  and  afllicted" — /.  <?.,  on  account 
of  His  own  sins,  not  ours.  When  did  the  people,  representing  whom 
the  prophet  here  speaks,  thus  esteem  Him?  Plainly  just  when  He 
bore  our  sicknesses  and  carried  our  sorrows.  Was  that  when  He 
was  working  His  miraculous  cures  and  ejecting  wicked  spirits? 
Certainly  not,  for  there  is  no  evidence  or  reason  to  suppose,  that 
His  doing  these  works  caused  Him  any  bodily  suffering  whatever, 
04  that  He  had  any  luoi-c  soi'i-gw  then  than  at  other  times.  We  have 


414  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

no  information  that  He  ever  was  sick;  and  the  records  of  His 
special  sorrows  all  ascribe  them  to  Him  at  times  when  He  was  not 
working  miracles  at  all  (Mat.  26:37,  38;  Mark  14:34),  except  when 
He  raised  Lazarus  from  the  dead,  and  then  their  cause  was  inde- 
pendent of  the  miracle.  Probably  they  were  less  then  than  com- 
monly, because  He  had  pleasure  in  all  the  good  He  accomplished  by 
(them  to  the  bodies  and  souls  of  suffering  sinners.  As  to  His  bearing 
our  sicknesses  and  carrying  our  sorrows  by  sympathizing  with,  or 
entering  Himself  in  feeling  into,  our  woes,  which  by  some  is  made  the 
whole  of  it,  and  which  Dr.  Bushnell  pronounces  "the  most  natural 
and  certainly  great  and  worthy  meaning  for  the  passage  from 
Matthew,"  we  do  not  dispute  that  He  did  so,  nor  that  His  sympathy 
was  exceedingly  great;  but,  as  said  before,  compared  with  the  mo- 
mentous reality  signified  by  the  prophet's  language,  it  is  like  a 
hillock  beside  a  mountain,  or  the  moon  beside  the  sun  in  his  glory. 
Then,  what  kind  of  consistency  is  there  between  this  interpretation 
of  the  clauses  of  this  verse,  as  quoted  by  Matthew,  and  the  words 
of  the  prophet  following  them,  which  can  mean  nothing  else 
than  that,  although  Christ  would  do  what  these  clauses  assert,  yet, 
on  account  of  His  doing  those  very  things,  the  hostile  mass  of  the 
nation  would  esteem  or  regard  Him  as  one  "  afflicted  of  God,  smit- 
ten and  tormented  of  God,"  as  Hengstenberg  translates  the  words? 
What  reason  would  His  doing  this  furnish  why  the  unbelieving  peo- 
ple should  thus  esteem  Him  ?  None  whatever;  so  that  this  inter- 
pretation of  the  words,  boi-e  and  carried,  in  the  clauses,  totally 
destroys  the  reason  assigned  by  the  prophet  why  they  would  thus 
esteem  Him,  which  is,  that  He  would  bear  their  sickness  and  carry 
their  sorrows.  If  the  clauses  are  not  the  reason  why  they  would  so 
esteem  Him,  all  connection  of  sense  between  them  and  their  so 
esteeming  Him  is  wanting,  and  the  sublime  prophet  talked  inco- 
herently in  expressing  the  verse  as  he  did.  And  further,  if  the  whole 
verse  is  not  taken  together,  and  in  the  only  sense  it  can  then  have, 
which  is  what  we  have  stated,  what  possible  connection  and  coher- 
ence of  sense  is  there  between  it,  and  all  the  remaining  verses  of  the 
Chapter,  which  assert  that,  in  all  He  endured.  He  suffered  and  was 
treated  by  God  as  the  substitute  of  men?  In  short,  to  interpret  the 
first  two  clauses  of  the  verse  as  merely  expressing  Christ's  sympathy 
with  us  in  our  sufferings  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  its  remainder, 
and  with  the  whole  chain  of  the  Chapter  from  beginning  to  end. 

A  little   more   respecting   Dr.    Bushnell's   way  of  treating  Mat. 
8:17.     He  says,  p.  43  of  his  Vicarious  Sacrifice — "It  is  remarkable 


RELA  TIOAT  OF  V.  4   TO  VS.  s~i2. 


^■^1, 


as  being  the  one  Scripture  citation  that  gives,  beyond  a  question, 
the  exact  ?/j-//J-  loqucndi  oi  all  the  vicarious  and  sacrificial  language 
of  the  New  Testament."  We  reply,  it  gives  one  t/si/s  lognendi  out  of 
many,  and  nothing  more,  as  our  preceding  examinations  have 
abundantly  shown.  Every  expression,  such  as  the  following,  belongs 
to  the  usus  as  much  as  those  of  the  citation — "to  give  His  life  a 
ransom  for  many" — "He  gave  Himself  for  us  an  offering  and  a 
sacrifice  to  God" — "He  once  suffered  for  sins,  the  just  for  the  un- 
just"— "He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours  only, 
but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  v/hole  world" — "He  is  set  forth  a  pro- 
pitiation through  faith  in  His  blood" — and  many  others  besides 
those  in  Is.  53:5,  7,  12.  This  assertion  of  the  Doctor  is  therefore 
baseless;  but  is  a  specimen  of  many  others  which  stock  his  pages. 
We  waive  special  notice  of  any  more  of  them  found  in  pp.  42-46  of 
his  work,  because  in  what  we  have  shown  respecting  the  meaning  of 
both  the  prophet  and  Matthew  in  the  passage  referred  to  we  have 
sufficiently  refuted  them  all;  and  because  additional  refutation  of 
them  will  appear  in  our  examination  of  the  remainder  of  the 
Chapter.'" 

§  233.    RELATION  OF  V.  4  TO  VS.   5-12. 

The  prophet  began  with  the  bodily  and  temporal  consequences 
of  sin  in  verse  4,  because,  by  the  Jewish  law  and  the  consequent 
universal  belief  of  the  Israelitish  people,  these  Avere  punishments  for 
sins,  and  because  they  were  matters  of  experience  and  observation 
to  all,  so  that  he  might,  in  the  sequel,  go  on  to  unfold  all  that 
Christ's  bearing  and  carrying  these  involved,  and  Jiow  He  did  this. 
Thus  verse  4  stands  in  the  same  kind  of  relation  to  the  eight  which 
follow  in  which  Rom.  5:12  does  to  the  seven  which  follow  it:  and 
the  eight  show  that  He  bore  and  carried  human  sicknesses  and 
sorrows  by  bearing  and  carrying  a  burden  incomparably  heavier, 
the  positive  punishment  of  the  sins  of  men,  and  that  He  did  this  by 
suffering  substi,tutionally  a  full  equivalent  for  it.  They  thus  carry 
on  the  development,  in  two  counter  lines,  of  the  whole  tragic  case 
begun  in  verse  4 — that  of  God's  design  and  part  in  the  subjection  of 
the  Messiah  to  all  His  sufferings,  and  that  of  the  willful  refusal  of 
His  malignant  persecutors  to  recognize  and  admit  that  design  and 
part,  and  of  the  malignant  hatred  and  cruelty  with  which  they  treated 
Him.  Verse  4  is  more,  therefore,  than  a  prologue  to  the  swelling 
act  which    follows.     It  is  its    vital,  all-involving   beginning,  as  the 

(*)  Crawford's  Atonement,  p.  41. 


4i6  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

young  tree  is  of  the  same  tree  grown  to  its  largest  proportions.  Nor 
can  any  one  who  overlooks  this  vital,  organic  connection  between 
it  and  verses  5-12  have  any  true  understanding  of  the  whole,  or  of 
the  main  constituent  parts,  of  the  passage.  In  examining  verses 
5-12,  we  will,  when  it  seems  important,  state  what  we  deem  is  the 
true  sense  of  the  Hebrew  words  without  writing  them,  unless  it 
may  seem  absolutely  necessary,  leaving  it  to  scholars  to  judge  of 
our  correctness  in  interpreting. 

§  234.    OUR  SUBSTITUTE   IN  ALL  HE  SUFFERED — MEANING  OF  CHASTISE- 
MENT. 

Verse  5.  "But  he  wa§  wounded  for  our  transgressions;  he  was 
bruised  for  our  iniquities:  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon 
him;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed."  The  word  rendered  "for" 
here  means,  "on  account  of"  because  it  denotes  that  our  transgress- 
ions were  the  occasioning  cause  or  reason  why  He  was  wounded  or 
pierced.  In  saying  ^^ our  transgressions,"  the  prophet  classes  him- 
self with  all  sinners  on  whose  account  Christ  was  pierced.  The 
word  rendered  "bruised"  in  the  second  clause  primarily  means,  to 
crush;  in  the  passive,  to  be  crushed,  broken  in  pieces,  beaten  small; 
and  figuratively  expresses  the  most  terrible  sufferings  of  body  and  of 
mind.  It  was  in  being  thus  wounded  on  account  of  our  transgress- 
ions, and  crushed  on  account  of  our  iniquities,  and  not  in  His  sym- 
pathetic feeling  for  us,  that  He  bore  and  carried  the  burden  laid 
upon  Him,  which  was  ours.  The  noun  rendered  "■chastisement'' 
properly  means  that,  or  punishment,  it  is  from  a  verb  which 
primarily  means,  to  chastise,  to  correct,  to  punish  with  blows,  strokes 
(Deut.  22:18;  I.  Kings  12:11,  14.  "My  father  chastised  you  with 
whips,"  etc.) — especially,  to  express  correction  of  children  by  their 
parents  (Prov.  19:18:  29:17);  and  of  men  by  God  often  (Lev.  26:28). 
"Of  our  peace"  means,  by  which  our  peace  with  God  is  secured; 
and  "upon  Him"  means,  as  a  burden,  which  He  bore  in  being 
pierced  on  account  of  our  transgressions,  and  crushed  on  account 
of  our  iniquities;  and,  from  the  nature  of  the  case.  His  sympathetic 
feeling  for  us  could  not  be  this  burden  of  chastisement  or  punish- 
ment. This  is  always  inflicted;  that  never.  The  noun  rendered 
stripes  means  that,  weals,  bruises — the  marks  or  prints  of  blows 
(Ex.  21:25,  twice;  Gen.  4:23;  Is  1:6;  Ps.  38:5;  Prov.  20:30;  Jer. 
13:23).  It  indicates  exactly  the  marks  on  Clirist  from  being  beaten, 
buffeted,  and  scourged.  "  We  are  healed"  should  be — "it  is  healed, 
QV  healing  has  resulted,  to  us.     Healed  figuratively  expresses  deliver- 


CHRIST'S  PATIENCE  AND  MEEKNESS.  417' 

ancc  from  the  penal  consequences  of  our  sins.  The  substitution  of 
Christ's  sufferings  in  the  way  expressed  for  those  we  must  otherwise 
have  endured  ourselves  is  the  very  bone  and  marrow  of  the  whole 
verse;  and  His  sympathetic  feeling  for  us  was  no  part  of  what  was 
substituted. 

§  235.    HIS  SUBSTITUTION  FURTHER  DECLARED — INIQUITIES  OF  ALL 
THROWN  ON   HIM. 

Verse  6.  "All  we,  like  sheep,  have  gone  astray;  we  have  turned' 
every  one  to  his  own  w^y;  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the 
iniquity  of  us  all."  The  prophet  here  assigns  the  cause  which  moved 
Jehovah  to  subject  Christ  to  His  sufferings,  and  Him  voluntarily  to 
undergo  them.  It  was  the  lost  and  miserable  condition  of  mankind, 
wandered  and  severed  from  God,  and  God's  infinite  compassion  and 
desire  to  rescue  and  save  them.  Under  the  imagery  of  sheep  with- 
out a  shepherd,  and  exposed  to  all  dangers  and  destruction,  the 
miserable  state  of  mankind  estranged  from  God  and  apostate  in  sin 
and  error  is  strikingly  depicted.  The  rendering  of  the  Hebrew  in^ 
the  words — "And  the  Lord  has  laid  on  him,"  is  inadequate.  The 
primary  meaning  of  the  verb  in  them  is,  to  strike  upon  or  against,  to 
impinge.  It  involves  the  sense  of  some  person  or  thing  striking 
forcefully  upon  or  against  another,  as  with  a  blow,  or  as  by  a  weight 
thrown  upon  him.  Here  it  means  that  Jehovah  caused  to  fall,  or 
threw  upon  Him  the  iniquity,  /.  e.,  the  penalty  of  it,  of  us  all.  It 
expresses  clear  substitution  in  suffering  the  punishment  deserved  by 
the  sin  of  all  who,  like  sheep,  have  gone  astray — /.  e.  of  all  men,  and 
nothing  else.  As  in  the  preceding  verse  it  is  said  the  chastisement 
or  punishment  of  our  peace  was  on  Him,  this  one  tells  us  that 
Jehovah,  not  men,  put  it  upon  Him  by  throwing  or  causing  to  fall 
upon  Him  the  iniquity  of  us  all.  No  distortion  of  language  can 
make  it  mean  or  imply  any  reference  to  Christ's  sympathetic  feeling 
for  man;  for  how  could  Jehovah  throw  that,  or  cause  it  to  fall,  like 
an  impinging  weight  or  heavy  blow  upon  Him?  Besides,  as  far  as 
sympathy  is  implied,  it  is  ascribed,  not  to  Christ  at  all,  but  to 
Jehovah.  It  was  by  Him  that  the  weight  or  blow  was  made  to  fall 
on  Christ. 

■§  236.     HIS  PERFECT  PATIENCE  AND  iMERKNESS   IN  HIS   SUFFERINGS. 

Verse  7.  "He  was  oppressed,  yet  he  humbled  himself  and 
opened  not  his  mouth;  as  a  lamb  that  is  led  to  the  slaughter,  and 
as  a  sheep  that  before  her  shearers  is  dumb;  yea,  he  opened  not  his 


4l8  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

mouth."  Hengstenberg  says — "The  prophet  had  commenced,  verse 
2,  the  description  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Messiah;  in  verses  4-6,  he 
had  digressed,  in  order  to  assign  the  causes  of  these  severe  suffer- 
ings. He  now  resumes  the  description,  and  sets  before  us  in  this 
verse  the  perfect  meekness  and  patience  of  the  great  servant  of  God 
in  his  distress."  Lowth  render  the  beginning  of  this  verse — "  It 
was  exacted,  and  he  was  answerable;"  and  Vitringa,  Michaelis, 
Dathe,  Kinol,  Jahn,  and  the  Jew,  Kimchi,  agree  in  "it  was  exacted." 
Hengstenberg  says:  "This  interpretation  has  certainly  much  to 
recommend  it,"  adding — "for  the  punishment  of  sin  is  very  com- 
monly represented  under  the  image  of  the  exaction  of  a  debt," 
although  he  prefers  the  rendering — "  He  was  abused."  He  renders 
the  following  words — "but  he  suffered  patiently,"  in  agreement  with 
Jahn  and  Steudel.  It  is  not  important  for  our  purpose  to  examine 
the  verse  farther.  Its  obvious  purpose  is  to  set  forth  the  perfect 
meekness  and  patience  of  Christ  under  His  appalling  abuse  and 
sufferings;  and  be  it  observed,  that  there  is  nothing  in  it  which  can 
mean  His  sympathetic  feeling  for  sinners.  We  only  add  the  words 
of  Hengstenberg — "  With  reference  to  this  verse,  John  the  Baptist 
calls  Christ  (John  1:29),  the  Lamb  of  God.  Compare  I.  Pet.  i:i8, 
19;  Acts  8:22,  35." 

§  237.    HOW   HE  WAS   CUT  OFF    BY  MEN,  YET    WOULD    HAVE   A  VAST  POS- 
TERITY. 

Verse  8.  "  By  oppression  and  judgment  he  was  taken  away;  (but 
who  can  declare  his  posterity?);  for  he  was  cut  off  out  of  the  land 
of  the  living;  for  the  transgression  of  my  people  was  he  stricken." 
The  general  meaning  of  this  verse  is,  that  the  sufferings  of  Christ 
were  brought  to  a  close  by  His  being,  after  an  iniquitous  trial,  cut 
off  out  of  the  land  of  the  living,  though  not  from  having  avast  pos- 
terity. For  prison  we  substitute  oppression;  and  judgment  means  a 
judicial  decision  or  sentence,  i.  c.,  to  punishment.  The  verb  rendered 
"  was  taken  "  may  mean  here,  as  it  does  elsewhere,  a  violent  leading 
away  to  punishment;  but  probably,  according  to  the  parallelism,  it 
means  that  He  was  taken  away,  i.  e.,  out  of  the  land  of  the  living, 
as  it  is  said  in  the  parallel — was  put  to  death.  As  to  the  parenthetic 
question — "who  shall  declare  his  generation?"  as  it  is  not  import- 
ant to  our  purpose,  we  merely  say,  in  passing,  that  we  think  the 
opinion,  out  of  many,  that,  anticipating  what  is  said  in  verse  10,  it 
means — "  who  can  estimate  the  number  of  his  posterity?"  is  the 
true  one.     The  verb  "  was  cut  off"   never  means  a  peaceful,  ordi- 


ENTOMBED  IN  HONOR.  419 

nary  death,  but  always  a  violent,  premature  one,  as  in  Dan.  9:26 — 
"After  threescore  and  two  weeks  shall  the  Messiah  be  cut  off,  but 
not  for  himself."  Doubtless,  when  Daniel  expressed  this,  he  had 
this  place  of  Isaiah  in  his  mind.  In  the  clause — "  for  the  transgres- 
sion of  my  people,"  Isaiah  includes  himself  among  them.  These 
words  assign  the  Divine  reason  on  acco7i)it  of  \\\\\c\\  He  was  stricken, 
or  literally  •'  the  stroke  was  tipon  hhn."  In  this  verse,  as  in  all  the 
preceding,  no  reference  is  made  to  the  sympathetic,  or  any  subjec- 
tive feeling  or  state  of  Christ  respecting  men  in  their  woes,  but  only 
to  what  was  inflicted  upon  Him. 

§  238.    HIS  HONORABLE  BURIAL,  DESPITE  THE  DESIGN  OF  HIS  ENEMIES, 
WITH    THE  REASON. 

Verse  9.  "And  they  made  his  grave  with  the  wicked,  and  with 
the  rich  man  in  his  death;  because  he  had  done  no  violence,  neither 
was  any  deceit  in  his  mouth."  Hengstenberg  translates — "The)^ 
appointed  him  his  grave  with  the  wicked;  (but  he  was  with  a  rich^ 
man  after  his  death;)  although  he  had  done  nothing  unrighteous, 
and  there  was  no  guile  in  his  mouth."  The  sense,  as  he  states  it,  is 
— "  not  satisfied  with  his  sufferings  and  death,  they  sought  to  insult  . 
him,  the  innocent  and  righteous  one,  even  in  death,  since  they 
wished  to  bury  his  corpse  among  criminals.  It  is  then  incidentally 
remarked  that  this  object  was  not  accomplished.  Christ  was  en- 
tombed by  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  who  is  here  called,  as  in  Matt. 
25:57,  a  rich  man."  If  this  is  doubtful  to  any,  see  N'agelsbach's 
comment  in  loco  in  the  Lange  series.  It  is  probably  correct,  as  the 
whole  verse  pertains  to  the  spirit  of  Christ's  enemies  against  him, 
and  the  treatment  He  received  from  them.  It  is  not  important  to 
our  purpose  to  notice  it  further. 

§  239.    JEHOVAH    SUBJECTED    HIM    TO    HIS    SUFFERINGS — HIS    SOUL   AN 
OFFERING  FOR  SIN,  AND  THE  RESULTS. 

Verse  10.  "  Yet  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  bruise  him;  he  hath  put 
him  to  grief:  when  thou  shalt  make  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin,  he 
shall  see  his  seed,  he  shall  prolong  his  days,  and  the  pleasure  of  the 
Lord  shall  prosper  in  his  hand."  This  verse  declares  God  the  prime 
Causer  of  the  Messiah's  sufferings,  their  design,  their  fruit  and  result, 
and  His  restoration  to  a  perpetual  life.  Its  sense  is,  that  His  suf- 
ferings have  been  inflicted  upon  Him,  not  for  any  sins  of  His  own, 
nor  by  His  enemies,  acting  independently  of  any  design  or  control 
of  God;   but,   according  to   God's  infinitely  wise   and  benevolent 


420  SCRIPTURAL   TEACH/A' OS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

purpose.  While  He  permitted  them  to  act  out  their  wicked  will 
against  Christ,  He  overruled  and  guided  their  action  to  be  put  forth 
precisely  as  it  was,  and  subjected  Him  to  it,  in  order  out  of  and  by 
their  evil  to  accomplish,  by  the  atonement  which  His  sufferings  and 
death  would  make  for  the  sins  of  mankind,  and  by  all  the  grace  its 
would  secure  for  them,  the  infinite  good  of  the  salvation  of  immense 
multitudes  of  them,  of  vastly  augmented,  everlasting  blessing  to  all 
holy  creatures,  and  of  unlimited  and  perpetual  pleasure  and  glory 
to  Himself.  In  this  sense  and  for  this  incalculably  great  reason,  "  it 
pleased  the  Lord  to  bruise  him,  and  to  put  him  to  grief;  "  and  for  this 
same  reason,  He  voluntarily  came  on  purpose  to  be  subjected  to  this 
bruising  and  grief,  just  as  He  was  "  when  His  soul  [/.  e.,  He]  made 
an  offering  for  sin  " — for  the  marginal  reading  in  our  version,  and 
not  that  in  the  text,  is,  we  believe,  (against  Niigelsbach,)  the  true 
one.*  The  Hebrew  word,  ashani,  means,  first,  guilt,  desert  of  pun- 
ishment for  transgression  (Gen.  26:10;  Jer.  51:5);  then,  transgres- 
sion itself,  or  sin  (Num.  5:7,  8);  and  then,  guilt-ojfering  (Lev.  5:19; 
7:5;  14:21;  19:21).  In  our  examination  of  this  word,  as  used  in 
the  law  [§  205],  we  saw  that,  when  signifying  an  offering,  this  and 
the  sin-offering  were  essentially  the  same — /.  e.,  ivcre  for  an  expiatory 
covering  or  atonement  for  sin.  It  was  to  expiate  the  guilt  or  debt  of 
sin;  and  the  prophet  says  that,  when  Christ  shall  make  this  offering, 
"he  shall  see  his  seed,"  etc.  In  these  clauses,  he  expresses  the 
crowning  reason  and  end  of  Christ's  sufferings.  In  this  suB'ering, 
He  was  to  be  an  offering  for  sin  {jrtpi.  tik  a[uii>Tiai~)  to  cover,  to  atone,  to 
tnake  expiation,  for  it.  Hengstenberg  says — "According  to  this  pas- 
sage, Paul  affirms,  II.  Cor.  5:21,  God  has  made  Christ  to  be  d/m/jjia, 
a  sin-offering,  whereby  we  become  righteous  before  God,  as  in  Rom. 
8:3,  God  has  sent  Christ  -jTepiriK  nfiapTiaQ,  for  a  sin-offering,  and  Christ 
is  called  uacno^ ,  l/Mari'piov,  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  ior  all  sins,  Rom. 
3:25;  I.  John  2:2;  4:10.  Compare  Heb.  9:14."  The  language  of 
this  verse  could  never  be  applied  to  any  martyr;  nor  to  any  other 
one  than  Christ;  nor  to  Him  as  suffering  for  us  merely  in  sympa- 
thetic feeling;  but  to  Him  only  as  suffering  all  He  did  for  us  as 
mediately  and  innnediately  inflicted  \\\)on  Him  by  God  Himself,  with 
His  most  free  consent  and  obedient  co-operation  in  submitting  to  it, 
as  our  Great  High  Priest,  to  atone  for  the  sins  of  the  world.  The 
results  and  promised  rewards  are  more  fully  expressed  in  the  next 
two  verses. 


(•")  Magce,  Vol.  I.,  No.  XXVII.,  pp.  165-174;   Hengstenberg,  Barnes, 


JEHOVAH  SPEATCS.        '  421 

§  240.    JEHOVAH  SPEAKS.  AND  DECLARES  THE    RESULTS. 

Verse  11.  "He  shall  see  of  the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  shall  be 
satisfied:  by  his  knowledge  shall  my  righteous  servant  justify  many; 
for  he  shall  bear  their  iniquities."  Jehovah  is  represented  as  again 
speaking,  the  first  time  since  Chap.  52:13-15.  The  noun  rendered 
/ravai7  signifies  labor,  toil, /.  ^.,  wearisome  labor,  Eccl.  1:3;  21:11; 
tropically  of  the  mind,.  Ps.  73:16;  then,  trouble,  vexation,  sorrow, 
(Gen.  41:51;  Deut.  26:7;  Job  3:10;  16:2;  and  here).  It  includes 
the  two-fold  meaning  of  labor  and  suffering,  and  indicates  all  that 
the  Messiah  did  and  endured  in  accomplishing  the  great  atone- 
ment. Because  of  this  travail,  /.  e.,  labor  and  suffering  of  His  soul, 
"He  beholds'' — it  is  not  said  what,  but  doubtless  the  fruits  and 
rewards  of  it  indicated  in  the  previous  verse;  and,  with  the  sight  of 
them.  He  shall  satisfy  Himself  for  it  all,  as  the  farmer  does  for  all  his 
toil  and  weariness  with  the  sight  of  an  abundant  rewarding  crop. 
Beholding  the  hosts  of  millions  of  mankind,  of  all  nations,  genera- 
tions, and  ranks  eternally  saved,  blessed,  and  unspeakably  aggran- 
dized, all  the  good  to  the  intelligent  universe,  and  all  the  pleasure 
and  glory  to  God  produced  by  their  salvation,  He  will  estimate  this 
consummate,  eternal  result  amply  worth  all  He  did  and  suffered  to 
secure  it;  and  He  will  forever  rejoice  that  He  paid  the  requisite 
price,  though  so  vast  and  terrible,  to  secure  a  good  so  exceeding  all 
finite  comprehension;  especially,  because  otherwise  our  entire  race 
must  have  perished,  the  intelligent  universe  must  have  suffered  an 
eternal  loss  and  evil  as  great  as  the  good  effected,  and  God  must 
have  lacked  all  the  pleasure  and  glory  of  that  good  secured,  and  of 
the  contrasted  evil  prevented.  Besides,  His  gratulation  and  joy 
must  be  eternally  augmented  by  all  the  results  to  Himself  He  will 
forever  possess  and  contemplate.  "  By  or  through  His  knowledge  " 
— /.  e.,  men's  knowledge  of  Him,  as  made  known  to,  and  believingly 
appropriated  by,  them,  as  their  Saviour,  Jehovah  says,  "  shall  my 
righteous  servant  justify  many."  As  the  next  line  is  the  parallel  of 
this,  and  gives  the  ground  or  reason  for  the  justification,  and  as  it  is 
something  which  Christ  will  do  for  "  the  many,"  because  He  will 
bear  their  iniquities,  \\iQ  justifying  must  be  understood,  not  in  a  sub- 
jective, but  in  a  forejisic  sense — /.  e.,  that  He  will  forgive  \\\€\x  sins, 
remit  \}i\t\x  penalty,  and  treat  them  as  //"they  were  legally  righteous.''' 
The  justifying  is  opposed  to  the  condemning,  not  to  sinning,  and  is 
the  act  of  the  one  absolving  from   punishment,  not  of  the  one  ab- 

(*)  Deut.  25:1;  I.  Kings  8:32;  II.  CIimmi.  6:23;  Is.  5:23;  E,k.  23:7;  Ps.  82:3; 
Prov.  17:15;  Is.  50:8,  and  many  othei-  places. 


422  SCRIPTURJL   TEACHINGS  OM  THE  ATOKTEMENT. 

solved.  Christ,  though  perfectly  righteous  (verse  9),  nevertheless 
cquivalently  suffered  the  penalty  of  sin,  and  He  therefore  bestows 
justification  upon  all  who  believingly  repent,  restores  them  to  the 
favor  of  God,  and  treats  them,  as  far  as  penalty  is  concerned,  as  if 
they  had  not  sinned,  but  Were  subjectively  righteous  and  deserving. 
See  verses  5,  6,  especially,  "by  His  wounds  we  are  healed."  The 
last  clause  assigns  the  reason—"  And  he  shall  bear  their  iniquities," 
{sabhal) — shall  carry.  This  verb,  as  we  saw  (verse  4),  never  means 
bear  or  carry  away,  but  simply  as  a  burden;  and  to  bear  sin  or 
iniquity,  or  the  plural  of  these,  altvays  means  to  suffer  the  penalty 
of  it  or  them,  and  nothing  else.*  These  expressions  are  technical, 
legal  formulas,  invariably  meaning,  to  suffer  penalty ;  and  they  mean 
just  that,  and  nothing  different,  when  another  than  the  guilty  one  or 
more  suffer  it  instead  of  Him  or  them  (Lev.  19:17;  margin;  Num. 
14:33,  34;  Lam.  5:7;  Ez.  18:19,  20;  Is.  53:11,  12).  The  sons  are 
spoken  of  as  bearing  the  sins  of  their  fathers  in  all  these  citations, 
except  the  first  and  the  last.  In  none  of  them,  can  it  be  pre- 
tended that  the  meaning  is,  that  the  sons  bore  them  away,  or  any- 
thing else  than  that  they  suffered  their  punislunent.  Sabhal  m.  Lam. 
5:7,  and  nasa,  in  all  the  rest,  are  the  verbs  to  express  this  bear- 
ing.f  We  think  Henstenberg  made  a  decided  mistake  in  accepting 
the  position  of  Gesenius,  that  "  all  the  preceding  and  following 
futures  in  verses  11,  12  refer  to  the  state  of  exaltation  "  [of  the  Mes- 
siah], and  in  his  consequent  interpretation  of  sabhal,  carry,  in  this 
line,  because  it  is  in  the  future.  He  says — "The  Messiah  takes 
upon  himself  the  sins  of  every  one  who,  after  his  exaltation,  fulfills 
this  condition  "—[of  having  the  knowledge  of  Him  mentioned  in 
the  preceding  line]  "  /.  e..  He  causes  His  own  vicarious  obedience 
to  be  reckoned  to  him,  and  imparts  to  him  forgiveness.  He  will 
bear  their  sins  is  the  same,  only  under  a  different  image,  as  He  will 
Justify  them.'"  We  deny  the  sameness;  to  justify  is  not  to  bear  in 
any  sense.  The  mistake  (Nagelsbach  also  makes  it)  is  in  making 
t\iQ  prophetic  future  of  Christ's  sufferings  and  death  that  of  His  sub- 
sequent everlasting  exaltation.  He  bore  sins  o?ice,  v/hen  He  suffered 
and  died,  and  never  has  nor  will  again  to  all  eternity.  Not  a  hint 
is  there  here  about  His  bearing  them  as  consisting  in  tlis  suffering 
with  men  in  sympathetic  feeling. 

(•"■)  Ex.  28:38,  43;  Lev.  5:1,  17;  7:18;  17:16;  19:8;  20:17,  19;  22:16;  Num. 
5:31;  14:34;  18:1,  23;  30:15;  Is.  53:11;  Ez.  4:4;  18:19,  20;  44:10,  12 — to  bear  sin 
or  sins,  Lev.  19:17,  margin;  20:20;  22:9;  24:15;  Num.  9:13;  i8:22,  32;  Ez.  23:49; 
Heb.  9:28;  I.  Pet.  2:24. 

(f)  Magee,  Vol.  L,  pp.  310,  312. 


JEIIOVAII  DECLARES  HIS  REWARDS.  423 

§  241.    JEHOVAH  DECLARES  HIS  REWARDS. 

Verse  12.  "Therefore  will  I  divide  him  a  portion  with  the  great, 
and  he  shall  divide  the  spoil  with  the  strong;  because  he  poured  out 
his  soul  unto  death,  and  was  numbered  with  the  transgressors:  and 
he  bare  the  sin  of  many,  and  made  intercession  for  the  transgress- 
ors." Jehovah  still  speaks,  declaring  the  rewards  He  will  give,  and 
wJiy  He  will  give  them,  to  the  Messiah.  We  think  the  rendering  in 
our  version  of  the  first  two  clauses  of  this  verse  is  essentially  the 
correct  one,  as  the  prepositions  before  the  words  rendered  great  and 
strong  plainly  correspond,  and  should  be  brought  into  the  trans- 
lation. As  the  great  and  mighty  among  men  always  had,  before 
Christ's  death,  divided  the  spoil  of  the  nations  among  themselves, 
and  would  afterwards  strive  to  do  so,  it  has  vast  and  fine  significance, 
that  Jehovah  asserts  that,  after  Christ's  most  ignominious  and 
appalling  sufferings  and  death,  as  if  one  of  the  worst  and  basest  of 
criminals.  He,  the  Almighty  and  absolute  Disposer,  would  Himself 
reward  Him  by  dividing  the  spoil  to  Him  with  them,  giving  Him,  as 
the  imagery  implies,  the  Conqueror's  share,  what  the  Romans  called 
the  spolia  opima,  leaving  to  them  the  very  inferior  remainder.  It  is 
Jehovah  that  divides  it  to  Him;  and  the  language  does  uot  imply 
that  the  portion  divided  to  Him  would  be  of  the  same  kind  as  that 
divided  to  the  great  and  mighty  of  the  world.  It  would  be  both 
different  and  incomparably  superior,  as  the  whole  history  of  true 
Christianity  shows  it  has  been;  so  that  even  many  of  the  great  and 
mighty  have  been  and  will  be  themselves  part  of  it,  as  the  whole 
Church,  and  all  the  results  of  its  and  His  influence  are  parts  of  it. 
If,  in  the  short  time  of  a  little  over  eighteen  centuries,  His  portion 
has  become  so  immense  and  inestimable,  what  will  it  become  in  even 
half  as  many  to  follow? — or,  in  five?  What,  when  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world  shall  become  the  kingdom  of  Christ?  What,  in  all  the 
eternal  ages?  The  remainder  of  the  verse  presents  the  meritorious 
reasons  whv  Jehovah  will  so  reward  Him.  (i)  Because  He  poured 
out  His  soul  unto  or  in  death.  The  language  is  taken  from  that  used 
in  the  law  respecting  the  animals  slain  in  sacrifices,  whose  blood 
contained  their  life  or  soul,  and  was  poured  out  and  caught  by 
the  priest  to  be  sprinkled,  on  the  great  day  of  atonement,  before  the 
mercy-seat  in  the  Holy  of  holies,  then  on  the  altar  of  incense  in 
front  of  the  veil,  and  its  remainder  on  the  altar  of  burnt-offerings  in 
the  court  in  front  of  the  temple.  Christ  was  both  priest  and  sacri- 
fice, and  poured  out  His  blood,  life,  and  soul,  to  atone  for  the  sins 
of  the  world  (Lev.  17:11).     (2)  He  was,  or  sujfered  Himself  to  be^ 


424  SCRIPTURAL   TEACH  IMG  S  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

numhcycd  with  ilic  frai!Si:;ressprs.  Although  perfectly  obedient,  He 
suffered  Himself  to  be  so  numbered  by  men,  and  by  the  plan  of  God, 
as  if  one  of  the  worst  among  them,  in  order  thus  to  work  out  His 
great  atonement.  (3)  He  bore  [aorist]  t/ie  sin  of  many.  What  an 
illustration  it  is  of  the  effect  of  adopting  a  false  pr.nciple  of  inter- 
pretation, that  so  grand  a  scholar  as  Hengstenberg  should  be  led, 
by  adopting  that  of  Gesenius  already  noticed,  to  interpret  the  aorist 
oC  nasa  here,  as  "determined  to  be  the  future  by  the  context,  in 
which  the  exaltation  is  the  subject  of  discourse,"  so  as  to  make  it 
correspond  with  the  future  sablial  \x\.  verse  11  and  refer  to  Christ's 
exaltation,  which  is  not  even  mentioned,  and  at  most  is  only  implied 
as  one  part  of  the  rewards  to  be  given. Him,  instead  of  making  both 
the  words  express,  as  they  plainly  do,  the  preceding  fundamental, 
meritorious  reason  of  those  revvards!  The  consequence  is,  that,  by 
making  Christ  bear  sin  in  His  exaltation,  He  makes  His  bearing  it 
mean  only  forgiving  it,  of  which  meaning  there  is  not,  as  we  have 
shown,  another  instance  in  the  Bible,  when  the  word  is  connected 
with  sin  or  iniquity.  Sin  is  borne  only  by  suffering  its  penalty, 
whether  by  the  sinner  himself  or  by  a  substitute,  and  it  was  thus 
only,  as  the  whole  Chapter  shows,  that  Christ  bore  the  sins  of  many. 
(4)  He  made  intercession  for  the  transgressors.  The  verb  here  ren- 
dered, "  rnade  intercession,'"  is  the  same  which  in  verse  6  is  rendered, 
" IiatJi  laid,''  and,  as  here  used,  means,  in  addition  to  praying  for 
them,  presenting  Himself  before  the  Father  with  all  His  merit  and 
claims  on  account  of  all  He  has  done  and  endured  to  redeem  them, 
and  securing  for  them  all  the  favor  and  assistance  necessary  for  their 
complete  salvation,  eternal  glory  and  blessedness  (Heb.  7:25;  9:24; 
Rom.  8:34;  I.  John  2:1).  Of  these  four  specifications,  the  first  three 
set  forth  the  main  parts  of  His  atoning  sufferings  and  death,  and  the 
fourth  what  He  continually  does  to  make  the  others  effectual  for  the 
complete  salvation  and  glorification  of  as  many  as  possible  of  the 
transgressors;  and  in  none  of  them  is  there  any  reference  to  His 
suffering  with  men  in  sympathetic  feeling  for  their  woes  or  miser- 
able state.* 

To  this  exposition  of  this  wonderful  prophecy,  we  add  the  fol- 
lowing remarks: — 

I.  It  is  essentially  an  inspired  exhibition  of  what  was  symbolic- 
ally typified  by  the  animal  sacrifices  of  the  Levitical  Law,  as  is  man- 
ifest from  the  language  from  that  law  applied  to  the  great  predicted 


(*)  Hengstenberg's  Chris.,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  4S4-499,  537-560;  Barnes'  Int.  to  his 
comments  on  the  Chapter. 


CHRIST  NOT  A  MARTYR.  425 

sufferer.  The  expressions — "he  hath  borne  our  sicknesses  and  rar- 
ried  our  sorrows" — "the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him  " 
— "the  Lord  has  caused  to  meet  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all" — 
"for  the  transgression  of  my  people,  the  stroke  was  ui)oa  him" — 
"when  his  soul  or  he  shall  make  an  offering  for  sin" — "for  he  shall 
bear  their  iniquities" — "he  hath  poured  out  his  life  or  soul  mito 
death" — and  "he  bore  the  sins  of  many,"  are  all  derived  from  that 
law,  and  clearly  show  that  the  prophet  meant  to  set  forth  the  Mes- 
siah in  His  sufferings  and  death  as  the  antitype  of  the  sacrifices  of 
that  law — h.ow  the  great  reality  would  correspond  to  and  I'ulull  the 
typical  .^yli^bols.  ^ 

§  242.    CHRIST  NOT  A  MARYTR,  BUT  A  VOLUNTARY  SUDSTIIUTE  FOR 
SINNERS  IN  ALL  HE  SUFFERED,  ETC. 

2.  It  proves  that  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  were  not 
those  of  a  mere  martyr,  who  fell  a  victim  to  the  malignity  and  vio- 
lence of  persecutors,  being  unable  to  escape  from  their  murderous 
hands,  but  were  entirely  voluntary  on  His  part  and  in  obedience  to 
the  determinate  counsel  and  righteous  will  of  Jehovah.  It  thus 
proves,  that  they  were  not  for  any  sin  or  fault  of  His  own,  but  for 
the  sin  of  mankind — that  they  were  for  the  advantage  or  benefit  of 
mankind  by  being  in  the  stead  of  the  penal  suffering  deserved  by 
them  to  save  them  from  it,  and  were,  therefore,  purely  vicarious  or 
substitutionary,  as  no  mere  mart3'r's  nor  patriot's  ever  were — that 
they  did  not  consist  at  all  in  His  sympathetic  feeling  with  the  woes 
or  miserable  state  of  mankind,  but  entirely  in  what  was  inflicted  upon 
Him  from  without — that  it  is  only  on  the  basis  of  this  substitution 
that  any  of  mankind  can  be  sa\ed — and  yet,  that,  in  themselves, 
His  sufferings  and  death  secure  the  salvation  of  none,  but  are  merely 
provisional  {ox  all,  until  by  His  prevailing  intercession,  as  the  Great 
High  Priest,  such  transgressors  as  can  consistently  be  brought  to 
receive  salvation  on  their  basis,  do  so,  and  are  forgiven;  the  forgive- 
ness making  the  substitution  actual  for  all  such.  To  deny  this  sub- 
stitution is  to  deny  the  whole  fundamental  meaning  of  this  prophecy, 
as  the  expressions  quoted  from  it  above  and  its  whole  tenor  clearly 
show.  It  is  to  deny  that  Christ  was,  in  His  sufferings  and  death, 
either  sacrifice  or  priest,  since  by  the  law  the  very  purpose  of  the 
priestly  office  was  to  offer  sacrifices  to  God  with  intercessions  for 
the  transgressing  people;  since,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  all  sacri- 
fices were  substitutions,  and  nothing  else;  and  since  intercessions 
were  grounded  upon  them.     The  sympathetic  feelings  of  the  typical 


426  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

priest  for  his  fellow-men  were  exceedingly  important  as  a  personal 
qualification  for  his  office  (Heb.  5:2),  but  in  no  way  belonged  to 
the  sacrifice,  nor  affected  its  validity  for  its  objects,  the  sufferings 
and  death  of  the  victim  being  wJiolly  inflicted.  So  those  feelings  of 
Christ  were  inexpressibly  important  to  men  (Heb.  2:17,  18;  4:15), 
as  a  qualification  for  His  priestly  office,  but  were  no  part  of  His 
sufferings  and  death  as  "an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  for  men 
for  a  sweet-smelling  savor"  (Eph.  5:2).  These  were  entirely  inflicted 
upon  Him  from  without;  and,  as  neither  in  this  prophecy,  nor  any 
where  in  Scripture,  are  those  feelings  of  Christ  for  mankind  ever 
even  alluded  to  Avhen  His  sufferings  and  death  for  them  are  spoken 
or,  it  is  not  only  purely  arbitrary  to  attempt  to  make  them  consti- 
tute His  vicarious  suft'erings  or  any  part  of  them,  but  it  is  to  make 
His  inflicted  sufferings  and  death  to  no  end  and  of  no  account,  and 
Jehovah  unreasonable  and  unjust  in  subjecting  Him  to  them  (Acts 
2:23;  4:28;  Rom.  4:25;  8:32),  by  "causing  to  meet  or  rush  upon 
Him  the  iniquity  of  us  all,"  "bruising  him,"  "putting  him  to  grief," 
causing  him  to  be  "pierced  for  our  transgressions,"  "crushed  for 
our  iniquities,"  and  to  suffer  "the  chastisement  to  secure  our  peace" 
with  Himself;  and  it  is  to  make  Christ  Himself  voluntarily  undergo 
them  all  equally  to  no  end  and  without  reason.  They  did  not  come 
upon  Him  as  mere  incidental  results  of  the  malignity  of  His  mur- 
derous persecutors,  as  those  of  martyrs  come  upon  them,  but  as 
inflictions  to  which  He  was  subjected  by  the  purpose  and  sovereign 
will  of  Jehovah;  and  it  was  as  such  only  that  He  voluntarily  and 
obediently  endured  them,  "bearing  the  sin  of  many."  He  tells  us 
Himself  that  it  was  in  obedience  to  that  will  and  for  the  purpose  of 
enduring  them,  that  He  came  into  the  world.  Hence,  to  deny  that 
He  suffered  and  died  as  a  substitute  for  men,  to  rescue  them  from 
the  necessity  of  themselves  suffering  the  punishment  deserved  by 
their  sins,  is  not  only  to  make  nonsense  of  this  whole  prophecy  and 
of  all  Scripture  which  declares  that  He  suffered  and  died  in  our  stead 
and  for  us,  but  it  is  to  impugn  the  justice  and  character  of  God  who 
subjected  Him  to  the  infliction — to  deny  the  very  foundation  of 
Christianity — to  reduce  the  immensity  of  the  love  of  both  the  Father 
and  the  Son  for  guilty  men  to  a  comparatively  meager  measure — to 
make  justification  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term  impossible — to 
substitute  for  it  the  uncouth  thing,  fitly  expressed  by  the  uncouth 
word  rio-Jiteousing,  which  means,  not  freeing  men  from  penalty  and 
treating  them  as  if  personally  righteous  on  the  ground  of  atonement 
made  for  their  sins  by  Christ,  but  making  them  subjectively  righteous 


MA  GEE'S  VIEWS.  427 

by  mere  moral  influence — and  to  put  in  the  place,  by  all  this,  of  the 
real  Gospel  of  Christ  anotlier,  which  is  not  another. 

§  243.    PASSAGE  FROM  MAGEE    RESPECTING    THIS  CHAPTER  AND  ITS 
IMPORTANCE. 

3.  As  the  last  of  these  remarks,  we  quote  a  passage  from  Magee. 
He  says — "I  have  gone  thus  extensively  into  the  examination  of 
this  point,  both  because  it  has  of  late  been  the  practice  of  those 
writers  who  oppose  the  doctrine  of  atonement  to  assume  familiarly, 
and  p?-o  concesso,  that  the  expression  bearing  sins  signified  in  all 
cases,  where  personal  punishment  was  not  involved,  nothing  more 
than  bearing  them  away,  or  removing  them;  and  because  this  Chap- 
ter of  Isaiah  contains  the  whole  scheme  and  substance  of  the 
Christian  atonement.  Indeed,  so  ample  and  comprehensive  is  the 
description  here  given,  that  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  seem 
to  have  had  it  perpetually  in  view,  inasmuch  as  there  is  scarcely  a 
passage  in  the  Gospels  or  Epistles,  relating  to  the  sacrificial  nature 
and  atoning  virtue  of  the  death  of  Christ,  that  may  not  obviously 
De  traced  to  this  exemplar:  so  that,  in  fortifying  this  part  of  Scrip- 
ture, we  establish  the  foundation  of  the  entire  system.  It  will  con- 
sequently be  the  less  necessary  to  inquire  minutely  into  those  texts 
in  the  New  Testament  which  relate  to  the  same  subject.  We  cannot 
but  recognize  the  features  of  the  prophetic  detail,  and  consequently 
apply  the  evidence  of  the  prophet's  explanation,  when  we  are  told, 
in  the  words  of  our  Lord,  that  "  the  Son  of  man  came  to  give  his  life 
a  ransom  for  many'"  (Mat.  20:28);  that,  as  St.  Paul  expresses  it, 
"he  gave  hiinself  a  ransom  for  all''  (I.  Tim.  2:6);  that  "he  was 
offered  to  bear  the  sins  of  matiy'''  (Heb.  9:28);  that  "God  made  him 
to  be  sin  for  us,  tvho  knew  no  sin'''  (II.  Cor.  5:21);  that  "Christ 
redeemed  its  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  beijig  made  a  cicrse  for  us'''' 
(Gal.  3:13);  that  -'ht  suffered  for  sins,  the  Just  for  the  nrijusf''  (I. 
Pet.  3:18);  that  "he  died  for  the  ungodly''  (Rom  5:6);  that  ^' he 
gave  himself  for  us'-'  (Titus  2:14);  that  ^'h^  died  for  our  sins"  (I 
Cor.  iS'3)'}  and  "  was  delivered  for  our  offences"  (Rom.  4:25);  that 
'•  he  gave  himself  for  us  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  io  God"  (Eph  5:2); 
that  "we  are  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  His  Son"  (Rom.  5:10); 
that  "his  blood  was  shed  for  many  for  the  remission  of  sins"  (Mat. 
26:28). — These  and  many  others  directly  refer  us  to  the  prophet, 
and  seem  but  partial  retlections  of  what  he  had  previously  so  fully 
placed  before  our  view.* 

{*)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  317^  318. 


42S  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  OiV  THE  ATONEMENT. 

§  244.    PASSAGES  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT,  IN  WHICH  NASA  AND  SABIIAL 
ARE  TRANSLATED  INTO   CORRESPONDING   GREEK  VERBS. 

We  close  this  Chapter  by  calling  attention  to  some  passages  in 
tlie  New  Testament  in  which  the  Hebrew  verbs  sabhal  and  iiasa, 
which  express  the  very  life  of  this  prophecy,  are  translated  into 
corresponding  Greek  verbs  which  signify  precisely  what  they  do  in 
It,  the  purpose  and  sacrificial  character  of  Christ's  sufferings  and 
death,  and  which  thus  show  that  the  prophecy  related  to  and  was 
fulfilled  by  Christ  in  undergoing  them.  We  first  notice  I.  Pet.  2:24 — - 
"  Who  himself  bore  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree."  He  uses 
the  Greek  verb  uvaipipu ,  which  means  the  same  as  both  the  Hebrew 
verbs  meationed,  as  they  stand  in  Is.  53:11,  12,  but  here  specially 
for  sabhal  in  verse  12,  from  which  he  evidently  quotes;  and,  by  the 
way,  the  meaning  he  gives  it  plainly  disagrees  with  that  given  it  by 
Gesenius,  etc.,  referred  to  above.  The  Greek  verb  primarily  means 
to  hear  i/ptvard,  to  carry  up,  to  lead  up,  i.  e.,  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
|)lace;  and  then,  to  take  tip  and  bear,  to  take  from  another  upoii  one's 
<elf;  in  the  New  Testament,  spoken  metaphorically  of  sins,  to  bear 
the  punishment  of  sin,  to  expiate,  as  in  this  verse.  It  therefore  often 
lias  the  sense  of  offering  up  a  victim,  as  carrying  it  up  to  the  altar. 
Applied  to  Christ,  it  properly  means  that  He  bore  or  carried  up  the 
burden  or  penalty  of  our  sins  to  the  cross,  and  suffered  it  there. 
Peter  took  it  from  the  Septuagint  translation  of  sabhal  in  Is.  53:12. 
It  is  used  in  that  translation  in  Num.  14:33,  to  render  nasa,  where 
it  is  said  that  the  children  of  the  rebellious  Israelites  shall  bear  their 
v.-horedoms,  i.  c.,  suffer  the  punishment  of  them;  and,  in  verse  34,  to 
•••xpress  that  the  offenders  themselves  shall  bear  those  very  sins, 
which  verse  33  says  their  sons  should  likewise  bear.  Calovius  says — 
'The  cross  of  Christ  was  the  lofty  altar  to  which,  when  he  was  about 
to  offer  himself,  he  ascended  laden  with  our  sins."* 

Heb.  9:28  says:  ''So  Christ  was  once  offered  to  bear  the  sins 
of  many,"  plainly  referring  to  Is.  53:12,  and  using  the  same  Greek 
verb,  which  Peter  uses,  to  render  the  same  Hebrew  verb,  taking  it 
from  the  Septuagint  version,  as  he  did.  All  therefore  shown  respect- 
ing it  in  the  passage  from  Peter  applies  equally  to  it  here.  But  we 
remark,  in  opposition  to  Moll  on  the  passage,  that,  as  Christ  ap- 
peared the  first  time  to  bear  sin  by  suffering  its  penalty  for  men,  the 
words—-'  he  will  appear  the  second  time  without  stji,'"  must  mean, 
■without  bearing  it  or  being  off'ered  for  it.  The  antithesis  demands 
this  meaning,  and  with  the  whole  nature  of  case,  admits  no  othgf- 
(*)  Stuart's  Com.  on  Hebrews.  Exgursus  19. 


JOHN  i:2g.  429 

"  Without  sin,"   therefore,  must   mean,   7vithotit  a  sin-offering.     Is. 
53:10  is  undoubtedly  referred  to  in  the  expression. 

§  245.    TKOPER    TRANSL.4TION    OF    JOHN     1:29,    EXCLUDES    AWAY    FROM 

TAKES. 

John  1:27,  spoken  by  John  the  Baptizer  to  his  disciples,  and 
probably  to  others  around  him,  says:  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God 
which  takes  away  [bears]  the  sin  of  the  world."  The  article  before 
lamb  indicates  the  one  specially  appointed;  and  ''of  God"  that  it 
was  peculiarly  His  sacrifice,  one  selected  by  Him,  (Rev.  5:8;  13:8). 
Is.  53:7  predicted  that  the  Messiah  should  be  as  a  lamb,  which  is 
led  to  the  slaughter,  /.  c,  for  a  sacrifice,  as  the  whole  connection 
shows;  and  to  this  passage  and  the  whole  connected  prophecy,  the 
Baptizer  doubtless  refers.  Lange,  on  this  verse,  says:  "The  Mes- 
sianic import  of  the  passage  named  [Is.  53:7]  cannot  be  evaded, 
and  the  particular  features  suit,"  (Mat.  8:17;  Acts  8:32;  I.  Pet. 
2:22-25).  Isaiah,  in  writing  that  7th  verse,  doubless  referred  to  the 
lambs  offered  in  sacrifice  according  to  the  law,  and  the  Baptizer 
probaljly  had  these  also  in  his  mind.  The  words  rendered — "which 
takes  away  the  sin  of  the  world,"  prove  that  he  meant  that  Christ, 
as  the  lamb,  was  to  be  offered  as  a  sacrifice,  as  this  prophecy  of 
Isaiah,  the  typical  sacrifices  of  lambs,  and  numerous  other  inculca- 
tions of  the  Old  Testament,  with  the  spirit  inspiring  him  to  uryder- 
stand  them,  had  clearly  taught  him.  The  meaning  of  the  Greek 
verb  aipui,  used  in  this  clause,  is  primarily,  to  raise,  to  raise  or  lift 
up,  to  take  up  to  carry,  to  carry;  then,  to  take  up  and  place  on  one's 
self,  to  take  up  arid  bear,  i.  e.,  to  bear,  to  carry;  then,  to  take  up  and 
carry  away,  i.  e.,  to  take  away,  to  remove,  i.  e.,  by  carrying;  and  then, 
to  take  away,  to  remove,  the  idea  of  lifting,  etc.,  being  dropped.  No 
one  supposes  it  has  the  last  of  these  meanings  here.  Both  our  ver- 
sions place  the  third  in  the  text,  the  second  in  the  margin.  The 
question  is,  should  it  be  rendered  here  takes  away,  or  simply  takes, 
hears,  carries  /  It  is  agreed  by  the  ablest  interpreters  that  this  verb 
here  is  the  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  verb  nasa,  when  followed  by 
sin  or  sins,  iniquity  or  iniquities,  as  in  Is.  53:12  and  often  in  the  law; 
and  this  understanding  of  it  is  demanded  by  the  fact  that  this  word 
is  here  followed  by  "  sin  of  the  world"  as  its  object,  just  as  that 
verb  is  by  sin,  iniquity,  etc.,  in  all  the  places  referred  to.  The  whole 
clause  is  simply  a  translation  of  Isaiah's — "  he  bore  the  sin  of 
mnny,"  K'orll  being  substituted  foi-  many.  Now,  we  believe  we  have 
shown  in  our  exposition  of  Isaiah's  })rophecy.  that  nasa,  followed  r.  j 


430  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Stated,  never  means  to  take  or  bear  arvay,  but  simply  to  bear,  i.  e.,  as 
a  burden,  to  endure  the  punishment  of  sin,  iniquity,  or  of  plurals 
of  each;  and  we  think  the  Greek  verb  here  can  mean  nothing  else. 
For,  in  addition  to  what  we  have  said,  it  is  not  true  in  fact  that 
Christ  "takes  aivay  ^^  sin  of  the  world."  This  is  only  done  by 
regeneration  and  forgiveness  in  the  case  of  believers,  and  not  in 
that  of  any  others.  The  term  sin  in  the  singular  number  indicates 
that  of  the  entire  race,  not  of  a  part  of  it,  as  one  monstrous  mass, 
which  He  took  upon  Him  and  bore  as  a  burden  by  suffering  its  pen- 
alty provisionally  for  all,  actually  for  all  whom  He  foreknew  as 
brought  to  faith  in  Him.  The  adverb  away,  added  to  takes,  spoils 
the  whole  conception,  and  substitutes,  we  believe,  a  derogatory  and 
misleading  one,  Lange  in  his  comment  on  the  passage  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding.  We  deny  his  statement  that  offering  for  sin 
and  the  vicarious  expiation  involve  the  idea  of  taking  away,  carry- 
ing off;  they  lay  a  basis  for  doing  this,  and  nothing  more.  Tho- 
luck's  view  is  the  same  with  ours,  and  Olshausen  labored  in  vain  to 
set  it  aside.  Bloomfield  has,  in  our  view,  clearly  and  conclusively 
established  it  in  his  Notes  on  the  Greek  New  Testament,  in  loco. 
The  assertion  is,  that  Christ  is  God's  sacrificial  victim,  and  thus 
takes  on  Himself  or  bears  the  sin  of  the  world;  and,  if  we  should 
hold  that  world  here  means  the  elect  only,  still  the  rendering — "  takes 
away  the  sin  of  the  elect,"  would  not  be  sustained  by  the  Scriptural 
usage  of  taking,  bearing,  carrying  sin,  which  never  includes  justifica- 
tion and  regeneration,  but  simply  enduring  its  penalty.  It  is  very 
remarkable,  that,  in  the  Apocalypse,  the  Apostle  John  calls  Christ 
the  Lamb  28  times;  and  4  times  he  characterizes  Him  as  a  lamb 
slain,  adding  in  5:9  and  "hast  redeemed  us  to  God  by  thy  blood." 
Also,  that  Peter,  I.  Pet.  1:18,  19,  tells  believers  that  they  "were 
redeemed  with  the  precious  blood  of  Christ,  as  of  a  lamb  without 
blemish  and  without  spot."  Why  did  they  so  designate  and  charac- 
terize Him?  Doubtless,  from  their  remembrance  of  this  indicative 
description  of  Him  by  John  the  Baptizer.  They  plainly  thus  refer 
to  Him  as  the  great  sin-offering  for  the  world;  and  hence  all  these 
designations  and  characterizings  confirm  our  interpretation — "  Be- 
hold the  Lamb  of  God,  which  takes  upon  himself,  bears  the  sin  of 
the  world."  Taking  away  or  removing  sin  is  done,  not  for  the  world 
nor  for  the  elect  in  mass,  but  for  each  individual  brought  to  believe; 
and  it  is  effected,  not  by  the  atonement  itself,  which  only  lays  the 
basis  and  secures  the  agencies  and  means  of  it.  but  bv  these.  But 
the  atonement  is  for  all  while  in  sm^  aiiu  was  clone  once  ior  all,  never 


JOHN  i:2g.  431 

to  be  repeated.  Speaking  figuratively,  the  atonement  was  a  whole- 
sale transaction,  while  taking  mvay  or  removmg  sin  is  a  retail  trans- 
action, done  in  and  for  individuals  and  rej^eated  in  the  case  of  every 
separate  convert. 

If,  against  the  foregoing  interpretation  of  John  1:29,  we  are 
pointed  to  I.  John  3:5 — -'And  we  know  that  he  was  manifested  that 
he  might  take  awa\  our  sins,"  and  are  told  that,  in  it,  the  same  verb, 
altiu,  which  we  have  said  does  not  mean  take  away  in  that  verse,  is 
plainly  correctly  so  rendered  in  this,  and,  therefore,  should  be  so 
rendered  in  that,  we  answer  as  folhnvs:  We  believe  that,  in  this,  it  is 
correctly  rendered  take  aiuay,  but  not  in  that;  for,  in  this,  there  is 
no  special  reference  to  Christ's  sufferings  and  death  as  a  sacrifice 
for  sin,  as  there  is  in  that,  and  the  whole  connection  demands  that 
we  should  understand  take  away,  in  this,  in  a  purely  ethical  sense. 
The  words — "  l-{e  was  manifested,"  merely  express  the  fact  of  His 
incarnate  appearance  and  mission  among  men;  and  the  words — 
"  that  he  might  take  away  our  sins,"  express  the  purpose  of  His 
manifestation,  as  it  jjertained  to  the  spiritual  deliverance  of  all  who 
would  become  His  from  their  actual  sins.  Nothing  is  said  of  His 
being  a  lamb,  an  offering,  a  sacrifice,  a  propitiation,  of  His  suffer- 
ings and  death,  or  by  what  means  he  takes  away  our  sins;  and  the 
plural  sins,  with  the  whole  connection,  shows  that  the  Apostle  did 
not  mean  the  penalties  they  deserve,  but  all  the  different  kinds  of 
them  actually  committed.  And  by  saying  "  our  sins,"  he  restricts 
them  as  only  those  of  believers,  not  those  of  the  world.  The  pas- 
sage, therefore,  is  simply  a  general  statement  of  the  ethieal  etui  w^Wich. 
Christ  came  into  the  world  to  accomplish  in  all  brought  to  receive 
His  salvation,  namely,  their  purification  from  all  their  actual  sins. 
In  John  1:29,  he  is  presented  as  the  Atoiier  by  bearing  the  penalty 
of  the  sin  of  the  world;  in  this  verse,  as  the  Purifier  of  believers 
from  their  actual  sins;  and  the  verb  mentioned  is  used  in  it  in  its 
fourth  sense  of  ''■  taking  away,  removing,  the  idea  of  lifting,  etc.,  be- 
ing dropped."  It  neither  asserts  nor  denies  anything  respecting  the 
atonement  of  Christ;  but,  as  the  Apostle  had  referred  to  that  in 
Chapter  2:2,  he  assr.mes  it  here;  and,  as,  in  2:1,  he  had  declared 
that,  "if  any  man  [a  believer]  sins,  we  have  an  Advocate,"  etc.,  he 
declares  what,  as  sueh,  He  Vi-as  mc^nifested  to  accomplish  for  all 
believers. 

Entirely  to  the  same  effect  is  I.  John  1:7 — •'•'The  bh^od  of  Jesus 
Christ,  his  Son,  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin."  The  atoning  virtue  of 
Christ's  blood  is  here  asserted,  but  not  as  the  ground  of  forgiveness 


432  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT.' 

or  justification  of  believers,  who  alone  are  spoken  of,  but  as  that  of 
their  purificatioti  or  sanctification  from  all  sin.  Braune,  in  his 
Comm.,  in  loco,  says  well — "The  reference  is  not  to  remission  of 
sins,  or  the  pardon  of  guilt,  but  to  the  cancelling  of  sin  and  redemp- 
tion from  it." 

We  close  this  Chapter  with  a  quotation  from  Mr.  Townsend, 
cited  by  Bloomfield  in  his  excellent  note  on  John  1:29 — "In  sup- 
port of  the  doctrine  of  Atonement  there  is  more  authority  than  for 
any  other  revealed  in  the  Jewish  or  Christian  Scriptures.  It  was 
taught  in  the  beginning  of  the  patriarchal  dispensation,  the  first 
after  the  fall,  in  the  words  of  the  promise,  and  in  the  institution  of 
sacrifices.  It  is  enforced  by  the  uniform,  concurrent  testimony  of 
types,  prophecies,  opinions,  customs,  and  traditions  of  the  Jewish 
Church.  It  is  the  peculiar  foundation  and  principal  doctrine  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  all  ages,  which  has  never  deviated  from  the 
opinion  that  the  death  of  Christ  on  the  cross  was  the  full,  perfect, 
and  sufficient  sacrifice,  oblation,  and  satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  the 
whole  world." 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Rxautination  of  tlic  Greek  prfpositions  avrl  a/u/  fmep^'  iii  passages 
concerning  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  for  the  salvation  of 
human  sinners;  and  the  teaching  of  Scripture  that  these  were  neces- 
sary to  their  salvation. 

§  246.     THE    PREPOSITION    nvri . 

In  its  primary,  local  sense,  this  preposition  means,  before,  in 
front  of,  over  agaitist;  figuratively,  barter,  exchange,  in  which  one 
thing,  is  given /f/-,  instead  of,  another,  and  so  takes  its  place  (tyefor, 
instead  of,  eye,  tooth  for,  instead  of  tooth,  Mat.  5:38).  In  the  Sep- 
tuagint  translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  often  used  in  this 
strictly. substitutional  sense,  of  which  use  the  following  passages  are 
specimens.  "  God  hath  appointed  me  another  seed  instead  of  Ahe\" 
(Gen.  4:25).  "Joseph  gave  them  bread  in  exchange  for  horses  and 
flocks  and  cattle  "  (Gen.  47:17).  "  Wherefore  have  ye  rewarded  evil 
for,  instead  of,  good?"  (Gen.  44:4).  "Aaron  died,  and  Eleazer  his 
son  ministered  in  the  priest's  office  in  his  stead"  (Deut.  10:6).  "And 
Abraham  went  and  took  the  ram,  and  oftered  him  up  for  a  burnt- 
offering  in  the  stead  of  his  son  "  (Gen.  22: 13).  "  And  the  king  was 
much  moved,  and  went  up  to  the  chamber  over  the  gate,  and  wept: 
and  as  he  went  thus  he  said,  O  my  son  Absalom!  my  son,  mv  son  Absa- 
lom !  would  God  I  had  <X\t<\for,  instead  of  i\\&t,  O  Absalom,  my  son, 
my  son  !  "  (II.  Sam.  18:33).  Both  the  last  passages  are  striking  in- 
stances of  the  substitutionary  meaning  of  this  preposition.  In  the 
New  Testament,  the  following  are  examples  of  its  use:  "Archelaus 
reigned  in  Judea  ///  the  room  of  his  father  Herod"  (Mat.  2:22). 
"Eye/^r,  instead  of,  an  eye,"  etc.  (Mat.  5:38).  "If  he  ask  a  fish, 
will  he  for,  instead  of,  a  fish  give  him  a  serpent?"  (Luke  ii:ii). 
See  also  Rom.  12:17;  Mat.  20:28  in  connection  with  Is.  53:12; 
Mark  10:45  ^^  .^^^  same  connection;   I.  Tim.   2:6,  referring  to  both 

(*)  When  these  or  other  Greek  prepositions  stand  alone,  they  will  commonly 
be  printed  in  FZnglish  letters,  except  in  captions. 


434  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Is.  53:12  and  to  Christ's  words.  In  Mat.  20:28  and  Mark  10:45,  the 
substitutionary  meaning  of  the  preposition  is  strengthened  by  the 
word  Avrpov,  ransom  before  it,  which  itself  means  substitution,  the 
ransom-price  /or  their  forfeited  souls.  Lange  says  that  ivrpov  here 
equals  copher,  and  refers  to  Ex.  30:12;  Num.  35:31;  Prov.  13:8. 
"This  price  of  redemption  he  gave  anti,  and  not  merely  hiiper  in 
the  wide  sense,  /.  e.,  instead  of,  in  exchange  of,  or  as  a  substitute" 
(Mat.  17:27;  Heb.  12:16).  Alford  says  the  expression  "is  a  plain 
declaration  of  the  sacrificial  and  vicarious  nature  of  the  death  of 
our  Lord."  On  I.  Tim.  2:6,  Van  Oosterzee,  says  in  his  Comm.,  in 
loco,  Lange  Series  — "  avriAVTpov,  somewhat  stronger  yet  than  the 
usual  ?.vTpov  (Mat.  20:28),  since  the  idea  of  exchange,  which  lies  in 
the  substantive  itself,  gains  special  force  from  the  preposition 
(Matthies).  In  connection  with  this  noun,  hiiper  is  not,  in  this  place 
at  least,  simply  to  be  understood  in  commodiim  (Huthur),  but  here 
the  idea  of  substitution  must  be  firmly  held.  The  one  ransom 
weighs  more  than  all  the  souls  in  whose  place  it  is  reckoned,  and 
here  too  the  souls  are  spoken  of  as  Trai^rfc,  «//."  This  is  the  undeni- 
able import  of  this  passage.  In  opposition  to  Dr.  Washburn,  his 
translator,  who  tries  to  set  this  import  aside,  quoting  Coleridge,  we 
maintain  that  the  substitution  of  Christ  was  not  and  could  not  be  sub- 
jective, what  he  calls,  "  Christ  in  us  and  we  in  him."  In  what  conceiv- 
able sense  could  it  be  tiiis  for  all  or  for  any  not  already  in  Him,  or 
for  one  at  all  ?  There  is  nothing  vicarious  or  substitutional  either 
for  all  or  for  those  united  to  Christ,  and  no  exchange  about  it.  But 
the  reality,  denied  by  him,  was  Christ's  subjecting  Himself  to  God's 
justice  against  men  in  their  stead  to  ransom  them  from  it;  and  it  was 
as  purely  an  objective  fact  as  giving  a  money-ransom  for  any  number 
of  persons  to  redeem  them  from  captivity  or  death  is.  No  subjec- 
tive theory  of  this  momentous  reality  has  the  least  validity, 

§  247.    THE  PREPOSITION  tV/r. 

This  preposition  before  the  genitive  of  aimpna  is  often  in  the 
New  Testament  substituted  for7rfp/,as  in  Heb.  9:7;  10:12,  where 
reference  is  made  to  Lev.  16:3,  5,  6,  9,  it,  15,  27,  prescribing  the 
offerings  to  be  made  for  {~epl)  sin  by  the  High  Priest  once  every 
year.  It  primarily  means,  over,  or  above  the  place  v^htre.  anything  is 
or  moves,  yet  not  in  immediate  contact  with  it.  In  its  secondary 
sense,  when  governing  the  genitive  of  objects  affecting  persons,  it 
may  signify  either  "  for  the  benefit  of,"  or  "  ///  the  stead  of,''  or  both 
these  together,  as  the  nature  of  the  case  determines;  so   that,  of 


THE  GREEK  PREPOSITION:  435 

itself,  it  does  not  determine  wliich.  Liddell  and  Scott,  in  their 
Greelc  and  English  Lexicon,  give  under  No.  5  of  its  meanings,  when 
it  governs  the  genitive,  y^-r,  i.  c,  instead  of,  in  the  name  of,  vnep  eavTov , 
in /lis  stead,  Thuc.  1.141."  Donegan  says — "for,  i,e.,inplaceof,'' 
and  makes  the  same  reference.  As  Prof.  Crawford  says,  in  his  Work 
on  the  Atonement,  p.  22,  numerous  instances  occur  in  the  Greek 
Classics,  in  which  the  phrase,  airoOvrianEtv  virep  -ivm,  is  used  to  signify 
"dying  instead  of  a  person;"  and,  in  Note  A  of  his  Appendix,  p. 
493,  he  quotes  passages  from  Raphelius*  and  from  Valkenarius, 
which  establish  the  position  by  a  number  of  classical  quotations,  to 
which  he  adds  seven  others  from  the  Alcestis  of  Euripides,  showing 
the  interchangeable  use  of  anti  and  hiipcr  in  an  unquestionable  case 
of  substitution.  In  the  New  Testament,  Paul,  in  his  Epistle  to 
Philemon  respecting  his  servant  Onesimus,  says — "  Whom  I  would 
have  retained  with  myself,  that,  in  thy  stead  ('Wp  gov),  he  might  min- 
ister unto  me  in  the  bonds  of  the  gospel  "  (verse  13).  As  Onesimus 
would  not  have  ministered  to  Philemon,  nor  for  his  benefit,  but  to 
Paul/;;'  his,  instead  of  Philemon,  his  master,  hiiper  plainly  cannot 
here  signify  nor  include  the  meaning, /^r  tiie  benefit  of,  but  must 
exclusively  mean,  instead  of,  as  a  substitute  for  {vice).  Winer,  in  his 
N.  T.  Gram.,  revised  edition,  p.  383,  says — "  In  most  cases,  one  who 
acts  in  behalf  of  another,  takes  his  place  (I.  Tim.  2:6;  II.  Cor. 
5:15);  hence  Jiuper  is  sometimes  nearly  equivalent  to  anti,  instead, 
loco  (see  especially  Eurip.,  Alcestis,  700),  Philem.  13;  Thuc.  1,141; 
Polyb.  3,  67,  7)."  We  say  that  in  Philem.  13  it  is  entirely  equivalent 
to  anti.  Respecting  II.  Cor.  5:30,  in  which  v-k^o  xp'-'^'ov  occurs 
twice,  Winer  says — "  propably  Jiuper  means  both  times /^-r  Christ,  i. 
e.,  in  his  name  and  behalf  (consequently,  in  ids  stead);  "  to  which 
he  adds  several  references  to  classical  authors.  As  an  ambassador 
acts  in  the  place  of  his  sovereign,  so  Paul  declares  himself  acting  a? 
Christ's  ambassador  in  His  stead,  so  that  substitution  is  necessarily 
involved  in  the  declaration.  In  verses  14,  15,  he  says — "For  the 
love  of  Christ  constraineth  us;  because  we  thus  judge,  that  one  died 
for  all  (rmsp  TravTuv),  therefore  all  died;  and  he  died  for  all  {Jiuper) 
that  they  which  live  should  no  longer  live  unto  themselves,  but  unto 
him  who  died  and  rose  again  for  them."  He  judged  that  Christ's 
dying  for  all  ( vi^ip  Travrov)  was  virtually  the  same  as  their  own 
dying  under  the  penalty  for  their  sins  would  be — that  is,  was  repre- 
sentatively vicarious.  Plainly  huper  has  essentially  the  sense  of  anti, 
instead  of.  One  died  instead  of  all  dying  penally.  As  Pie  was  the 
(*)  Magee,  Vol.  I.,  p.  185,  quotes  the  same. 


436  SCRrrrURAI.   TF  A  en/Arcs  OAT  rilE  ATONEMENT. 

supernatural  head  autl  representative  of  the  race,  His  dying  for  all 
was  as  if  they  all  penally  died  in  and  with  Him;  and,  as  He  rose 
and  lives  again  in  the  same  relation  to  them,  they  all  rose  with  Him 
to  a  new  gracious  probation,  and  all  of  them  who  receive  Him  act- 
ually rose  and  live  in  and  with  Him  spiritually.  In  Rom.  5:6-8, 
liupcr  occurs  four  times  with  precisely  the  same  meaning;  and  while 
"for  the  benefit  of  is  certainly  in  that  meaning,  "in  the  stead  of '^  is 
just  as  certainly  in  it.  Verse  6  asserts  that  "Christ  died  for  {hi/per') 
the  ungodly."  To  show  the  extraordinary  character  of  God's  love 
for  mankind  as  sinners  and  enemies,  evinced  by  Christ's  dying  for 
them  though  such,  the  Apostle,  in  verse  7,  supposes  two  cases,  in 
which  one  man  might  be  willing  to  die  for  another  from  love  for 
him,  in  their  general  relations.  One  is  the  case  of  a  man  strictly 
Just  towards  others.  For  {huper)  such  a  man,  he  says  "  scarcely 
would  any  one  die."  The  other  is  the  case  of  a  man  having  the 
known  character  of  a  kind,  generous,  beneficent  man  towards  all. 
For  {huper)  such  a  man  "some  one  might  even  dare  to  die,"  and 
would  thus  evince  the  highest  love  for  him.  But  the  love  manifested 
by  God  towards  mankind  incomparably  surpasses  even  this,  because, 
while  they  were  sinners  and  enemies  against  Him,  Christ  dxedfor 
ijiiiper)  them.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  just  man,  there  would  be 
something  in  his  character  to  inspire  love  for  him;  much  more  in 
that  of  the  good  x^2iXi;  but,  in  that  of  our  race,  there  was  nothing  in 
their  eharacter  to  inspire  it,  but  exactly  the  opposite  to  the  highest 
degree.  Yet  God  so  loved  them  as  beings,  that  His  beloved  Son 
even  diedfor  {/luper)  them,  that  they  might  not  penally  die.  That 
is.  He  died  /;/  t/ieir  stead  for  their  supreme  benefit.  Thus,  in  all  these 
four  instances,  Jiuper  includes  anti  in  its  meaning.  As,  in  the  sup- 
posed cases  of  \\\ejust  and  of  X}n.<t good xn'A.w,  the  substitution  would  be 
for  the  beneficial  end  of  saving  them  from  bodily  death;  so  in  the 
case  of  mankind,  sinners  and  enemies  against  God,  the  substitution 
was  for  the  beneficial  end  of  saving  them  from  the  penal  death 
demanded  by  the  law;  and  the  meaning,  "in  the  stead  of,"  can  no 
more  be  excluded  from  the  preposition  in  all  these  cases  than  can 
that  "  for  the  benefit  of."  *  This  preposition  has  this  same  two-fold 
meaning  in  Gal.  3:13 — "Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the 
law,  having  become  a  curse  for  {I'-kp  -iravruv  )  us:  for  it  is  written, 
Cursed  is  every  one  that  hangeth  on  a  tree."  The  curse  of  the 
penal  demand  of  the  law  was  upon  all;  He  took  it  on  Himself  and 
bore  it   instead  of  all,  and   thus  redeemed  all  provisionally,  and  all 

(*)  Tholuck  on  Romans  hi  loco.     Also,  Olshausen  and  Lange. 


DUPLICATE  MEANING.  437 

believers  actually,  from  it.  The  benefit  proceeds  wholly  from  the 
substitution,  so  that  they  are  essentially  implicated  in  each  other, 
and  equally  signified  by  this  preposition.  The  word  redeemed  itself 
has  really  the  same  duplicate  meaning.  So,  in  John  11:50-52,  this 
preposition  has  the  same  two-fold  import  of  benefit  by  substitution 
each  of  the  three  times  of  its  occurrence.  It  has  it  when  Caiphas 
says  to  the  Sanhedrim — "  Nor  do  ye  take  account  that  is  expedient 
for  you  that  one  man  should  (Saq  for  (Jiupet^  the  people,  and  that  the 
whole  nation  perish  not" — that  He  should  die  ///  its  stead,  to  do  it 
the  benefit  of  saving  it  from  perishing.  Says  Lange  in  his  Comm.  in 
loco — "  The  hupcr,  in  comnioduni,  for  the  benefit  of,  becomes  also  anti, 
instead  of,  in  consequence  of  the  concluding  clause — "  and  that  the 
whole  nation  perish  not."  As  the  Apostle  uses  it  twice  in  his  re- 
marks, in  verses  51,  52,  it  plainly  has  exactly  the  same  duplicate 
meaning  of  benefit  by  substitution.  It  has  the  same  in  John  10:  ti  — 
"I  am  the  good  shepherd:  the  good  shepherd  layeth  down  his  life 
for  ifiupcr')  the  sheep  " — also  in  verse  15 — "  I  lay  down  my  life  for 
{Jiuper^  the  sheep."  As  his  laying  down  his  life  for  them  could  be 
for  their  benefit  in  no  other  way  than  by  saving  their  lives,  the  pre- 
position, in  both  places,  can  only  mean  for  their  benefit  by  substitu- 
tiofi.  Lange,  in  loco,  says — "  The  huper  is  here  synonymous  with 
a7iti.  The  shepherd  dies  that  the  flock  may  be  saved  " — /.  e.,  from 
dying.  But  hupcr  embraces  the  sense  of  benefit  to  the  flock  by  sub- 
stitution more  distinctly  than  «;/// could.  In  John  13:37,  38,  huper 
has  the  same  two-fold  import  in  each  of  the  verses;  and  also  in 
15:13.  Also,  in  I.  John  3:16  twice.  See,  also,  John  6:51;  Rom. 
16:4;  I.  Tim.  2:6;   I.  Cor.  5:7;    15:29;   Gal.  2:20;   Eph.  5:2,  25. 

§  248.     i)-t:ip    ALWAYS    HAS     THIS    DUPLICATE    MEANING    WHEN     USED     IN 
STATING  THAT  ONE  DIES  TO  SAVE  OTHERS  FROM  DYING. 

In  view  of  all  thus  shown,  it  is  certain  that  those  interpreters 
are  in  error  who  deny  that  huper  ever  has  the  meaning  of  anti  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  maintain  that,  when  used  to  express  the  relation 
of  Christ's  death  to  mankind,  it  always  and  only  means,  //;  coniino- 
dum,  in  behalf  of,  for  the  be?iefit  of  It  has  neither  of  these  meanings 
alone  in  any  of  the  passages  examined  above,  but  has  them  both 
together  in  all  of  them,  except  Philem.  13,  where  it  exclusively  means 
anti,  in  the  stead  of;  and  we  maintain  that,  7vhenevcr  used  to  express 
the  relation  of  CJirisf  s  death  to  mankind,  it  invariably  signifies  both 
substitution  and  for  the  benefit  of  or  for  the  benefit  of  by  substitution. 
This  is  confirmed  by  several  considerations.     One  is,  that,  in  all  the 


438  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

instances  cited  from  the  Greek  classics,  sixteen  in  all,  by  Raphelius 
and  Valkcnarius,  and  by  Prof.  Crawford,  it  has  this  twofold  mean- 
ing. It  has  it  in  all  the  passages  from  Zenophon  cited  by  Raphelius; 
it  has  it  in  the  one  instance  from  Hyginus,  in  the  two  from  the  argu- 
ment of  the  drama  of  Euripides,  and  in  the  one  from  Plato  cited  by 
Valkenarius;  and  it  has  it  in  the  seven  from  the  Alcestis  cited  by 
Prof.  Crawford.  Says  Valkenarius — "  It  should  be  known  and  well 
observed,  that  cnroQaveLv  vnip  Tivog  signifies,  not  only  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, but  also  in  profane  writers,  to  die  in  the  place  of  another,  mori 
loco  alterius,  so  that  Christ  certainly  not  only  died  for  our  advantage 
{in  commodum  nostrum),  but  did  not  refuse  to  undergo  death  in  our 
place  (jiostrum  loco),  which  we  had  merited."  He  says  again — "  The 
phrase,  mrnOaveiv  inrip  -Lvor ,  or  tlvoq  inrep  mroOavsLv ,  not  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment only,  but  also  among  Greek  writers,  signifies  not  only  to 
die  for  the  benefit  of  another  {in  commodum  alterius  mori),  but 
also  in  the  place  of  another  {loco  alterius),  so  as  thus  to  undergo  a 
vicarious  death  {vicariam  mortem).'"  *  Another  consideration  is,  that, 
as  Tischendorf  says — "There  is  something  in  the  preposition  itself 
which  makes  it  more  suitable  than  the  other  {anti)  for  describing 
the  deatli  which  Christ  encountered  for  us;  for  no  one  denies  that 
the  chief  thing  to  be  considered  in  this  inatter  is,  that  Christ  died 
for  the  advantage  of  men;  and  this  indeed  was  so  done  by  His  dying 
in  the  room  of  men.  Now,  for  the  conjoint  sense,  both  of  advantage 
and  of  substitution,  huper  is  admirably  used  by  the  Apostle.  Winer, 
with  his  usual  accuracy,  holds  that  it  is  improper,  in  important 
passages  where  the  death  of  Christ  is  discussed,  to  take  huper  as 
simply  or  exactly,  equivalent  to  anti;  for  undeniably  it  corresponds 
to  the  Latin  pro  and  to  the  German  fiir.  But  as  often  as  Paul 
teaches  that  Christ  died  for  us,  he  did  not  wish,  according  to  my 
judgment,  that  from  the  notion  of  substitution  that  of  advantage 
should  be  disjoined;  nor  did  he  ever  wish  that  from  the  latter, 
although  it  may  be  exceedingly  obvious,  the  former  should  in  this 
form  of  expression  be  excluded. "f  We  add  also  the  foUbwing  from 
a  posthumous  Work  of  Dr.  F.  C.  Baur — "As  the  death  of  Christ  in 
relation  to  God  is  an  act  of  satisfaction,  so  in  relation  to  man  it  is 
substitutional.  That  Christ  died  vrrkp  vfj-^v,  /<?;- ^/r,  is  the  expression 
most  commonly  used  by  Paul  to  indicate  the  significance  of  His 
death  for  men.  From  the  preposition  huper  by  itself,  the  notion  of 
substitution  cannot  be  inferred;  but  just  as  little  can  this  notion  be 

(*)  Crawford's  Atonement,  Appendix  pp.  493-495. 
(f)  Doctrina  Pauli  de  vi  mortis  Christi  satisfactoria. 


SUBSTTTUTIOiVAL. 


439 


excluded  from  it.  The  two  notions,  that  which  was  done  for  men, 
and  that  which  was  done  in  their  stead,  pass  over  into  each  other." 
He  says — "II.  Cor.  5:15  contains  most  distinctly  the  notion  of  .<■,'//;- 
s/itu/ion"  among  five  other  passages  referred  to,  and  adds — "TIic 
Apostle  draws  from  the  proposition,  nn  inrip  -awuv  aTn^OavEv  {(Vie  die  J 
for  an),the  immediate  inference,  apa  ul  ttuvtec  ii-i^amv  {llicn  all  died). 
Christ  not  merely  died  for  them,  but  also  in  their  stead,  as  the 
one  in  place  of  the  many — who  even  because  He  died  for  them 
and  in  their  stead,  did  not  actually  die,  but  are  only  regarded 
as  dead  in  Him,  their  substitute.  What  happened  to  Christ 
happened  objectively  to  all."  He  then  unfolds  the  idea  of  the 
passage.*  Another  consideration  is  found  in  all  the  other  proofs 
that  Christ's  death  was  substitutional,  along  with  the  fact  that  Jnipcr 
does,  in  the  passages  considered,  certainly  mean  substitution  for 
benefit ;  for,  if  the  vicarious  character  of  Christ's  death  is  clearly  and 
manifoldly  taught  in  other  forms  of  language,  as  well  as  by  the  use  of 
this  preposition  so  many  times  over,  it  is  the  only  warranted  infer- 
ence, that  it  has  this  duplicate  meaning  whenever  used  to  signify 
the  relation  of  Christ's  death  to  mankind  as  sinners.  While  there  is 
no  ground  in  or  out  of  this  preposition  for  the  position  that  the 
benefit  to  men  is  or  could  be  without  substitution,  there  is,  as  we 
have  shown,  both  in  its  use  and  out  of  it,  ])ositive  proof  that  it  is  by, 
and  could  not  be  without  it;  and  this  Jiuper  invariably  expresses 
when  it  signifies  the  relation  of  Christ's  death  to  mankind.  Denial 
of  substitution  therefore  finds  no  support,  but  positive  refutation, 
from  this  preposition. 

§  249.    NECESSITY    FOR    THE    SUBSTITUTIONAL    SUFFERINGS    AND    DEATH 

OF  CHRIST. 

It  is  either  asserted  or  implied  in  all  Scripture  concerning  the 
matter,  that  there  was  an  absolute  neeessity  created  by  the  sin  of 
mankind,  that,  if  they  or  any  of  them  were  to  be  saved,  Christ  must 
make  an  atonement  to  God  for  them  by  suffering  and  dying  for  them 
as  He  did.  This  necessity,  thus  created,  is  a  moral  one,  arising 
from  the  law  in  all  moral  beings  which  constitutes  them  all,  God 
included,  into  a  universal  and  eternal  moral  society  and  system,  as 
we  believe  the  First  Part  of  this  Work  demonstrates;  and  as  God  is 
in  and  eternal  Ruler  of  this  -society  and  system,  the  whole  force  of 
this  necessity  was  exerted  upon  and  held  Him  in  its  unyielding,  holy 
grasp.     Penally  perish  all  human  sinners  must,  or  Christ  must  come 


(*)  Crawford,  pp.  21-26.     Appendix,  pp.  495,  496. 


440  SCRIPTURAL   TEA^CIIINGS  O^Y  THE  ATONEMENT. 

and  make  an  aloncmcat  for  them,  a.i  lie  did.  Moral  necessity 
compelled  to  one  or  the  other  alternative,  and  barred  Him  away 
from  any  other  option. 

This  necessity  is  im])lied  in  all  passages  like  the  following: — 
"Who  was  delivered  up  for  our  trespasses"  (Rom.  4:25).  "God, 
sending  his  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  as  an  offering 
for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh"  (Rom.  8:3).  "  I  delivered  unto 
you  first  of  all,  that  which  I  also  received,  that  Christ  died  for  our 
sins  according  to  the  Scriptures"  (I.  Cor.  15:3).  "Who  gave  him- 
self for  our  sins,  that  he  might  deliver  us  out  of  this  present  evil 
world"  (Gal.  1:4).  "But  he,  when  he  had  offered  one  sacrifice  for 
sins  forever,  sat  down  on  the  right  hand  of  God"  (Heb.  10:12). 
"  Because  Christ  also  suffered  for  sins  once,  the  righteous  for  the 
unrighteous,  that  he  might  bring  us  to  God  "  (I.  Pet.  3:18).  "He 
was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for  our  iniqui- 
ties" (Is.  53:5).  "For  the  transgressions  of  my  people  was  he 
stricken"  (Is.  53:8).  These  and  all  other  such  passages,  whatever 
peculiarities  of  meaning  may  distinguish  them,  all  agree  in  imply- 
ing and  assuming  that  the  reason  why  our  Lord  was  delivered  up  by 
the  Father  and  gave  Himself  up  to  Flis  sufferings  and  death  was 
that  there  was  an  absolute  necessity  created  by  the  sin  of  mankind, 
that  He  should  undergo  them,  in  order  that  all  or  any  might  be 
saved.  Their  sin  raised  a  barrier  between  them  and  God's  favor,  im- 
movable and  impassable  by  them,  and  only  removable  even  by  God 
by  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  in  their  stead.  These  were  not  to 
render  God  merciful  towards  men,  but  were  from  His  infinite  mercy 
totvards  them,  that  He  might  by  them  provisionally  remove  that 
larrie;  and  righteously  exercise  that  mercy  to  the  utmost  degree  of 
wisdom.  Flis  adoption  of  this  substitution  demonstrates — (i)  that 
the  demands  of  justice  in  all  moral  reason  against  sinners  could  not 
be  set  aside  by  His  mere  will,  but  must  be  met  and  satisfied  by  an 
adequate  substitution  as  a  basis  for  Flis  forgiving  them; — and  (2) 
that  He  could  devise  no  other  such  substitution  than,  or  at  least 
inferior  to,  that  of  the  sufferings  and  death  of  His  incarnate  Son. 
As  He  does  nothing  unnecessary  to  its  end,  it  is  certain  that  Fie 
would  not  have  devised  this  one,  if  any  inferior  one  would  have 
served  the  purpose.  We  do  not  believe  Fie  could  have  devised  a 
greater  one,  nor  consequently  any  other  to  serve  the  purpose;  and 
we  therefore  hold  it  for  perverted  reverence,  when  men  say  it  is 
presumptuous  to  suppose  or  maintain  that  God  could  not  as  well 
have  saved  men  in  some  other  way,  or  even  without  any  such  means^ 


SUFFERINGS  OF  CHRIST.  441 

if  He  had  willed  to  do  so.  In  saying  thus,  they  assume  the  false 
principle,  that  it  was  a  mere  matter  of  will  with  God  whether  to 
save  men  by  this  measure,  by  some  different  one,  or  without  any  at 
all,  which  implies  that  He  is  not  really  a  moral  Being,  having  the 
same  social-moral  law  in  Him,  which  is  in  all  moral  natures  created 
by  Him,  with  all  its  obligations  of  justice  and  subordinately  of 
mercy  eternally  binding  on  His  infinite  conscience  and  morally  rul- 
ing Him  to  absolute  righteousness  in  all  His  courses,  measures,  and 
actions  towards  them;  that,  therefore.  He  is  not  in  the  universal  and 
eternal  moral  society  and  system,  and  ruling  that  society  according 
to  that  system  as  rooted  in  His  own  eternal  nature,  but  is  free  from 
all  its  demands  of  justice,  both  as  ethical  towards  all  loyally  in  that 
society  and  as  retributive  against  all  violators  of  that  system;  and 
consequently  that  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  He  is  morally  just  or  un- 
just, righteous  or  unrighteous,  morally  benevolent,  morally  wise, 
morally  good,  morally  merciful,  or  that  He  can  act  morally  at  all,  or 
can  have  any  real  moral  character.  No;  the  absolute  certainty  is, 
that  He  is  a  Moral  Being  in  and  over  the  universal  moral  society 
created  by  Him,  having  the  same  law  in  Him  which  is  in  all  in  it, 
ruling  it  in  perfect  accordance  with  that  law  and  the  system  it  con- 
stitutes, which  is  one  of  perfect  justice  and  therefore  of  perfect 
moral  love;  and  that,  in  devising  and  adopting  all  His  courses  and 
measures  related  to  that  law  and  universal  system,  as  that  of  the 
atonement  pre-eminently  is,  He  ivills  and  acts  in  strict  compliance 
with  the  requirements  of  that  law  and  system  as  His  infinite  wisdom 
sees  and  guides  for  the  best  possible  achievement  of  their  obliga- 
tions and  ends.  He  never  luills  arbitrarily  or  capricioitsly,  but  always 
just  as  the  mandates  of  the  eternal  law  in  Him  require,  executing 
them  according. to  the  best  methods  of  His  infallible  wisdom.  Now, 
considering  that  the  measure  of  the  atonement  involved  such  infinite 
self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  of  both  the  Father  and  Soti,  we  think 
the  presumption  entirely  belongs  to  those  who  say  as  we  have  stated. 
We  think  this  the  more,  because  the  Scriptures,  when  speaking  of 
this  measure,  constantly  assert  or  clearly  imply  what  is  manifest 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  that  God,  in  order  to  save  men,  was 
under  a  necessity  to  do  it  just  as  He  did.  To  us  they  clearly  assume 
that  this  was  the  only  way  His  infinite  wisdom  could  devise  to  meet 
and  remove  the  greatest  moral  difficulty  in  the  universe  or  the  ages. 
If  men  would  only  discard  the  foolish  notion,  that,  because  God  is 
omnipotent.  He  can  do  anything  in  the  realm  of  mind,  as  He  does 
:jn  that  of  nialter,  and  would  consider  how,  in  the  Scriptures,  He  is 


442  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

set  forth  as  having  acted  in  all  pertaining  to  this  measure  according 
to  counsel  and  wisdom,  devising  and  adapting  means  and  courses  to 
secure  His  benevolent  and  just  ends,  how  would  His  ;;/f;-a/ attributes, 
not  Hi3  omnipotence,  and  all  His  procedures  in  this  measure  burst 
forth  on  their  eyes  with  an  ineffable  splendor !  Hov/  would  all 
antagonizing  reasonings,  speculatings,  assumptions,  and  objections 
vanish  like  morning  mists  shot  through  with  the  radiant  arrows  of 
the  sun  !  We  know  of  scarcely  an  objection  to  the  fact  of  the  sub- 
stitutional death  of  Christ  which  does  not,  at  bottom,  imply  the 
assumption,  that  the  whole  fact  of  God's  planning  and  executing 
the  redemptive  measure  was  merely  a  matter  of  His  will  in  the  sense 
we  are  opposing,  instead  of  one  according  to  the  law  in  His  eternal 
nature. 

§   250.    PASSAGES  TEACHING  A   NECESSITY  FOR   THESE    FOR   THE    FOR- 
GIVENESS   OF    SINS. 

The  first  of  these  passages  is  John  3:14-17.  Our  Lord  declared 
to  Nicodemus  the  necessity  of  regeneration;  and  he  was  incredulous. 
He  therefore  told  him  that  He  spoke  what  He  knew  and  testified 
what  He  had  seen;  and  he  asked  him — "  If  I  told  you  earthly  things, 
and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  heavenly 
things?"  Then  in  an  obscure  way,  He  indicated  His  own  Divine 
nature  and  consequent  knowledge  of  what  He  affirmed,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  declare  to  him  the  heavenly  things  in  verses  14-16:  "And 
as  Moses  lifted  up,"  etc.  These  words  epitomize  the  whole  Gospel, 
and  the  substance  of  our  Lord's  knowledge  and  sight  of  the  heavenly 
or  Divine  things  to  which  He  had  referred.  Of  these  things  He 
gives  a  brief  outline  in  these  verses — (i)  That  mankind  are  in  a 
ruined  condition,  and  must  all  perish  forever,  unless  rescued  in 
time — (2)  That  they  cannot  retrieve  themselves,  and  God  only 
could  do  it — (3)  That  He  could  do  it  no  otherwise  than  by  the 
infinite  self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  humiliation  and  suffering  of  His 
Son,  indicated  by  His  being  "lifted  up"  and  "given" — (4)  That  He 
so  greatly  loved  them  as  moral  natures,  that  He  yielded  to  the  neces- 
sity created  by  their  sin,  and,  in  order  to  provide  for  a  basis  for  their 
salvation,  "gave  His  only  begotten  Son" — /.  e.,  to  be  lifted  up  and 
to  die  on  the  cross  for  them  (John  'i:2'&\  12:32) — (5)  That  this  gift, 
of  itself,  saves  none  of  them  from  perishing,  but,  by  provisionally 
removing  the  demands  of  punitive  justice  against  all,  opens  the  way 
for  their  salvation,  so  that  whosoever  of  them  believes  on  Christ 
shall  not  perish,  but  liavc  ctcriial  life."     The  demand  of  God's  justice 


DIVINELY  TREATED. 


445 


against  sinners  was  not  a  thing  of  His  will  at  all,  but  of  His  nature, 
and  put  Him  under  an  absolute  moral  necessity  to  meet  it,  either  by 
subjecting  them  to  its  everlasting  execution,  or  His  only-begotten 
Son  to  meet  it  equivalently  in  their  stead.  Moved  by  the  infinitude 
of  His  pity  and  merciful  love  for  them,  He  adopted  the  latter  alter- 
native, despite  all  the  measureless  cost  it  involved  to  both  Him  and 
His  Son,  that  they  might  escape  perishing  and  have  eternal  life  by 
believing  on  the  Son.  If  there  were  no  such  sacred  demand  of 
justice  against  them,  how  could  either  His  love  for  them,  manifested 
in  this  infinite  substitution,  be  so  great,  so  boundless,  or  we  possibly 
justify  the  Father  in  making  it  ?  Look  at  the  case.  The  question 
is,  how  can  we  justify  the  Father's  treatment  of  His  only-begotten 
and  absolutely  obedient,  righteous,  perfect  Son,*  if  He  was  not,  in 
their  Divine  arrangement,  the  substitute  of  "the  world"  of  man? 
Christ  declared  His  course  and  conduct  were  in  obedience  to  His 
Father's  will  and  command,  fulfilling  the  work  He  gave  Him  to  do;f 
and  His  sufferings  and  death  were  undergone  in  this  obedience.. I  It 
is  distinctly  taught  that  He  was  subjected  to  them  by  the  determined 
design  and  will  of  the  Father;  and  that  He  vvas  sent  by  Him  and 
came  into  the  world  purposely  to  undergo  them.|| 

§  251.    NO  MARTYR  EVER  DIVINELY   TREATED  AS  HE  WAS. 

As  far  as  the  part  acted  by  men  was  concerned  Christ  was  2, 
martyr,  but  not  as  far  as  that  acted  by  the  Father  was  concerned. 
He  never  so  treated  any  human  martyr.  However  martyrs  have 
been  outraged  by  men,  they  were  once  sinners  and  enemies  against 
God,  and  therefore,  as  far  as  their  relations  to  Him  were  concerned, 
they  deserved  to  be  left  to  their  endurances.  Yet  He  never  forsook 
them,  but  was  ever  present  with  them  in  all  their  bitter  ordeals,  sup- 
porting, cheering  and  blessing  them — often  sending  His  angels  to 
visit  and  minister  to  them.  How  radically  different  His  course 
towards  Christ,  so  related  to  Him  in  nature,  so  absolutely  perfect  in 
character,  so  deserving  all  that  His  omnipotence  could  do  for  His 
protection  against  all  attempts  of  devils  and  men  to  injure  Him  ! 
How  does  it  distinguish  His  case  from  that  of  all  martyrs  ?  In 
their  case,  we  can  clearly  see  that  God  is  just  in  permitting  men  to 

{*)  Is.  53:9;  Luke  23:41;  John  8:46:  .\cts  3:14;  II.   Cor.   5:21;  Heb.  4:15;  7: 
26,  27;  I.  Pet.  2:22,  23;  3:18;  I.  John  2:1;  3:5. 
It)  John  4:34;  5:30;  6:38;  9:4;   17:4. 

(|)  .Mat.   26:39,  42;  John   lO:lS;    12:27;   Rom.   5:19;  Phil.  2:8;   Ilcb.  5:8;   12:2. 
(|)  Luke  22:22;  Acts?.-.23;  4:28;  Rom.  8:32;  Mat.  26:37-44. 


444  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

inflict  sufferings  and  death  upon  them;  but,  in  His,  if  we  consider 
Him  simply  as  a  subject  of  moral  government,  we  can  see  no  justice 
whatever  in  (iod's  even  permitting  His  enemies  to  make  Him  a 
martyr.  If  God  fails  to  preserve  even  a  mere  creature  of  stainless 
obedience,  much  more  one  so  related  to  Him  in  nature,  and  of  such 
absolutely  perfect  character  as  Christ  was,  from  utter  wrong  and 
outrage,  how  is  it  possible  to  vindicate  Him  as  just?  Why  then  did 
He  permit  men  and  devils  to  work  their  direst  will  upon  Him,  and 
to  drive  Him  out  of  the  world  on  a  cross  ?  Why,  beyond  this,  did 
He  treat  Him  as  He  did,  not  sparing,  but  delivering  Him  up  to  all 
the  outrages  He  suflered,  refusing  to  hear  His  thrice-repeated, 
agonizing  prayer  that  the  cup  of  His  coming  sufferings  might  be 
taken  from  Him,  and  forsaking  Him  in  the  extremity  of  them  on  the 
cross?  Was  the  Father  just  in  all  this  treatment  of  Him?  These 
questions  must  be  answered  in  the  court  of  eternal  justice,  and  can 
be  answered  nowhere  else  ?  The  Son  most  certainly  had  a  yjerfect 
right  io  giz'c  Himself  up  to  all  He  endured  either  as  a  martyr  or  as  a 
substitute  for  men,  if  He  saw  that  He  could  thus  accomplish  a  good 
for  them  which  would  outweigh  the  evil  to  Himself.  To  deny  this 
would  be  to  deny  that  He  had  a  right  to  be  perfectly  benevolent, 
and  to  practice  the  self-sacrifice  necessary  to  its  exercise.  But,  if 
He  was  merely  a  martyr,  outraged  and  crucified  by  men,  by  what 
principle  of  justice  ever  recognized  on  earth,  had  the  Father  a  right 
to  treat  Him  as  He  did,  or  not  to  interpose  and  rescue  Him?  We 
reverently,  but  solemnly  deny  that  He  could  have  any  such  right, 
and  therefore  that  Christ  could  have  been  designed  by  Him  to  be, 
'or  was,  merely  a  martyr,  or  anything  else  than  a  substitute  in  His 
sufferings  and  death  for  mankind,  as  He  had  a  perfect  right  freely 
to  choose  to  be,  while  the  Father  had  an  equally  perfect  right  both 
to  agree  with  the  Son  to  act  the  part  He  did  towards  Him,  and  to 
act  it  for  the  same  infinitely  benevolent  end  with  all  the  self-denial 
and  self-sacrifice  it  would  cost  Him.  As  Christ  could  have  been 
such  a  substitute  only  by  an  absolutely  free  agreement  between 
the  Father  and  Him,  that  each  should  act  His  own  precise  part 
throughout,  the  execution  of  their  parts  demonstrates  a  greatness  of 
merciful  love  for  man  as  vast  as  their  infinite  nature,  and  immeas- 
urably surpassing  all  creaturely  comprehension.  Those  who  deny 
the  substitution  may  labor  to  the  world's  end  to  vindicate  the 
Father's  course  towards  the  Son,  as  revealed,  without  ever  succeed- 
ing; for  it  can  be  done  on  no  other  ground;  and  they  certainly 
i-noiUd  either  do  it,  or  forever  abandon  the  denial  as  impliedly  charg- 


FURTHER  PROOF.  445 

ing  Him  with  the  greatest  wrong  towards  Christ  ever  acted  in  the 
universe;  and  they  only  make  the  matter  worse,  if  they  deny  the 
Scriptures  concerning  it.  They  must  also  necessarily  dwarf  their 
own  conception  of  the  love  of  both  the  Father  and  the  Son,  while 
those  who  intelligently  believe  the  fact  of  the  substitution  must  con- 
ceive of  that  love  as  immeasurably  great  and  amazing.  No  puny, 
so-called  moral  theory,  which,  in  its  very  nature,  is  a  denial  of 
God's  justice  and  morality,  can  ever  explain  and  vindicate  His 
revealed  treatment  of  His  Son,  or  exhibit  more  than  a  mere  shadow 
of  the  love  of  both  for  man.  Those  who  make  Christ's  obedience 
to  His  Father  in  undergoing  His  sufferings  and  death  the  atonement, 
can  never  escape  this  argument.  His  obedience  was  in  no  sense  an 
atonement  according  to  any  teaching  of  Scripture.  It  was  sim])ly 
in  order  to  His  making  one.  It  was  consummated  in  His  submit- 
ting to  suffer  and  die,'  that  His  sitjferings  and  death,  as  a  substitution 
for  those  deserved  by  human  sinners,  might  expiate  their  sins  and 
propitiate  God  to  them,  and  so  might  open  the  way  for  the  full  egress 
of  mercy  and  grace  to  them  by  satisfying  provisionally  the  demands 
of  justice  in  Him  against  them.  Christ's  obedience  did  none  of 
these  things.  If  it  did,  why  need  He  suffer  and  die  besides?  and 
how  was  the  Father  just  in  subjecting  Him  to  His  sufferings  and 
death.  How  could  His  obedience  be  for  our  sins,  or  meet  any  de- 
mands or  ends  of  justice  against  men  for  them  ?  Every  so-called 
moral  view  is  intrinsically  absurd,  as  well  as  against  Scripture. 

§  252.    OTHER    PASSAGES    IMPLYING    NECESSITY  FOR    THE  SUBSTITUTION 

OF    CHRIST. 

The  passage  in  I.  John  4:9,  10,  which  is  plainly  a  living  echo  of 
the  words  of  Christ  just  considered,  fully  confirms  what  we  have 
said  concerning  them.  "In  this  was  manifested  the  love  of  God 
towards  us,  that  God  sent  his  only-begotten  Son  into  the  world,  that 
we  might  live  through  him.  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but 
that  he  loved  us,  and  sent  his  Son  as  a  propitiation  for  our  sins."  ( xod 
sent  Him  into  the  world  to  be  a  propitiation  for  our  sins  by  expiat- 
ing them,  only  because  it  was  necessary  that  He  should  do  this, 
that  we  might  live.  We  have  shown  that  propitiation  and  expiation 
are  essentially  identical,  the  latter  being  a  sacrificial  satisfaction 
made  to  God  for  the  sins  of  men,  by  which  they  are  conditionally 
freed  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  their  jjenalty,  and  the  former 
being  its  effect  on  the  mind  of  (jod  as  rendering,  or  permitting  Him 
to  be  not  merciful,  but  propitious  to  them.     By  thus  meeting  the 


446  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

demand  of  justice  against  them,  it  gives  full  outflow  to  His  previously 
existing  mercy  towards  them.  According  to  Scripture,  there  is  no 
propitiation  of  God,  no  expiation  of  sin  against  Him,  except  by 
sacrifice,  by  the  shedding  of  sacrificial  blood;  and,  in  the  nature  of 
the  case,  the  sacrifice  made  is  always  substitutional,  the  life  of  the 
victim  instead  of  the  life  of  him  for  whom  it  is  offered;  so  that, 
when  Braune,  in  his  Comm.  on  I.  John,  Lange  series,  says,  in  com- 
menting on  2:2 — "neither  substitution  is  mentioned  here,  nor  the 
manner  and  means  how  this  propitiation  is  accomplished  and 
brought  about,"  he  only  says  what  is  true  of  the  expression,  not  of 
what  it  necessarily  assumes  and  implies.  The  expression  is  a  sacri- 
ficial one,  derived,  as  every  such  one  is,  from  the  Septuagint  Greek 
version  of  the  Levitical  Law;  and  by  it,  John  could  mean  nothing 
else  than  that  Christ  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  by  being  an 
expiatory  sacrifice  for  them;  and  neither  Braune's  statement  that 
"He  is  Himself  the  propitiation,"  nor  Dlisterdieck's,  quoted  by  him, 
that  "it  is  really  existing  in  his  Person,"  has  any  proper  meaning, 
or  is  true.  It  was  accomplished  by  His  special  act  of  offering  Him- 
self once  for  all,  by  His  one  obedient,  righteous  act  of  sacrificing 
Himself  on  the  cross  for  the  expiation  of  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 
We  have  the  same  expression,  with  the  same  meaning,  in  Chap. 
2:2  of  this  Epistle — "And  he  is  the  propitiation  (t/aa/zoc)  for  our 
sins;  and  not  for  ours  only,  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world."  In  what  other  possible  sense,  than  that  of  being  an  expia- 
tory sacrifice  for  them,  could  He  be  a  propitiation,  that  is,  of  God 
towards  man,  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  ?  Except  believers  of 
the  successive  generations,  they  are  all  sinners  and  enemies  against 
God,  and  far  the  greatest  part  of  them  continue  such  through  life — 
not  only  all  the  heathen,  but  even  in  Christendom.  On  all  such 
"the  wrath  of  God  abideth"  (John  3:35).  It  "is  revealed  from 
heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and  unrighteousness  of  men,  who 
hold  back  the  truth  in  unrighteousness"  (Rom.  1:18).  "  But  after 
thy  hardness  and  impenitent  heart  treasurest  up  for  thyself  wrath 
against  the  day  of  wrath  and  revelation  of  the  righteous  judgment  of 
God;  who  will  render  to  every  man  according  to  his  deeds:  To  those 
who  by  patience  in  well-doing  seek  for  glory  and  honor  and  incor- 
ruption,  eternal  life:  But  to  those  who  are  contentious  and  do  not 
obey  the  truth,  but  obey  unrighteousness,  indignation,  and  wrath, 
tribulation  and  anguish  upon  every  soul  of  man  that  doeth  evil,  of 
the  Jew  first,  and  also  of  the  Gentile"  (Rom.  2:5-9).  These  and 
numerous  other  passages  show  that  the  wrath  or  justice  of    God 


FURTHER  PROOF.  447 

against  persistent  sinners  is  not  actually  stt  aside  by  the  propitiation 
of  Christ,  and  that  it  is  only  provisionally  for  them.  How  then  is  or 
can  He  be  the  propitiation  for  their  sins,  except  in  the  sense  stated? 
What  else  can  the  expression  mean,  except  this  ? 

§  253.      I^«T/vO«a<   AND  WORDS   FROM  IT    IN    THE    NEW  TESTAMENT    FROM 
THE   SEPTUAGINT  VERSION  OF  THE  LEVITICAL  LAW. 

In  Heb.  2:17,  the  verb  WaoKtcOai  has  the  same  sacrificial  import — 
"to  make  expiation  for  the  sins  of  the  people."  It  does  not  express 
doing  something  to  render  God  ine?-cifid  or  gracious  towards  men, 
but  something  by  which  the  penalty  they  deserve,  and  which  God's 
wrath  or  justice  demands,  may  be  set  aside,  so  that  He  can  consist- 
ently act  as  such  towards  them,  Avhich  led  Him  to  make  the  expia- 
tion, towards  them.  The  propitiation  was  made  by  Christ,  as  a  merci- 
ful and  faithful  High  Priest,  not  to  man,  but  to  God;  and  the  expression 
— "  to  make  expiation  for  the  sins  of  the  people  "  is  only  slightly 
varied  from  many  others  in  that  version  of  the  Levitical  Law  and 
other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  designed  to  show  that  Christ 
made  it,  as  High  Priest,  by  offering  Himself  as  an  expiatory  sacrifice 
for  mankind,  as  the  offerings  prescribed  in  that  typical  law  were 
made  by  its  priests  to  expiate  the  sins  of  the  people  under  it.  In 
Rom.  3:24,  25,  is  the  following — "Being  justified  freely  by  his  grace 
through  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus:  Whom  God  has  set 
forth  to  be  a  propitiation  through  faith  in  his  blood  for  a  manifesta- 
tion of  his  righteousness,  on  account  of  the  passing  over  of  sins 
previously  committed  in  the  forbearance  of  God."  The  word  here 
rendered  propitiation  is  DMa-ijpiov,  a  neuter  noun  from  the  adjective 
u.aaT:,pi.oi:,  propitiatory,  expiatory,  from  the  verb  cAaauofini  to  appease, 
to  propitiate,  to  expiate.  This  neuter  noun  may  mean  the  same  as 
ITiaa/xdc,  expiation,  propitiation,  or  an  expiatory  sacrifice  {^vaa,  a  vic- 
tim, offering,  being  understood),  or  mercy-seat  (capporeth).  The 
cover  of  the  ark  in  the  Holy  of  holies  was  so  called  in  the  Septuagint 
version  26  times,  as  in  Ex.  25:18,  19,  20,  21,  etc.;  and  it  is  so  called 
in  Heb.  9:5,  the  only  time,  except  in  this  verse,  in  which  the  word 
is  used  in  the  New  Testament.  As  to  its  precise  meaning  here, 
critics  differ,  and  their  various  views  are  presented  by  Lange  in  his 
Comm.  on  Romans,  in  loco,  of  which  he  adopts  the  meaning  vicrey- 
seat  as  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  expiation.  He  says — "It  (in  this 
sense)  unites  as  symbol  the  different  elements  of  the  atonement." 
As  the  word  "redemption"  and  the  clause  "in  his  blood  "  are  both 
connected  with   this  one,  it  evidently  includes  the   meaning  of  pro- 


448  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

pitiatory  sacrifice,  if  it  is  not  confined  to  it  exclusively,  as  we  think 
it  is,  so  that  it  differs  little  whether  this  or  mercy-seat  in  Lange's 
sense  is  adopted.  The  blood  of  Christ  did  not  atone  by  its  mere 
matter,  but  by  containing  His  life  or  soul  which  was  offered  to  God 
as  an  expiatory  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  (Lev.  17:11); 
and  it  was  the  price  of  the  redemption  (aTroAi/r/jwcr^?),  which  is  in 
Christ  Jesus.  He  was  both  priest  and  sacrifice,  and  offered  Him- 
self to  God  for  men  in  His  crucifixion  (Heb.  9:14,  28;  7:27;  Eph. 
5:2).  The  Father  did  not  offer  Him,  for  this  he  did  Himself;  but 
He  set  Him  forth  publicly  in  His  crucifixion  as  an  expiatory  sacrifice 
for  the  sins  of  mankind  who  had  lived  before  He  suffered,  as  well  as 
who  should  live  afterwards  to  the  end  of  time;  and  He  did  this  for 
a  manifestation  of  His  righteousness  both  in  executing  His  justice, 
and  so  maintaining  His  law  in  the  expiatory  sacrifice  made  by 
Christ,  and  in  exercising  His  mercy  and  grace  towards  all  who 
believe  in  Christ  on  the  basis  of  that  sacrifice;  in  order  "that  He 
might  be  just  and  the  justifier  of  him  who  is  of  the  faith  of  Jesus" — 
/.  e.,  that  he  might  plainly  appear  and  be  recognized  by  men  in  this 
twofold  aspect  of  the  Just  One  and  the  Justifier  of  sinners  who 
believe.  This  end  of  God's  design  in  the  manifestation  shows  clearly 
the  true  expiatory  meaning  of  umctijplov .  Thus  all  these  passages 
(I.  John  1:2;  4:9,  10;  Heb.  2:17;  and  Rom.  3:24),  in  which  the  verb 
'ikaaaonai  and  the  nouns  from  it  are  used,  evince  that  Christ's  death 
was  an  expiatory  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  men,  and  He  thus  strictly 
a  substitute  in  His  sufferings  and  death  for  sinners  exposed  to  the 
penalty  of  their  sins;  and  of  course  that  this  substitution  was  abso- 
lutely necessary  in  order  to  their  salvation. 

Says  Dwight — "In  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint,  i?3  is  ren- 
dered by  the  verbs  'OiacKoiiai  and  e^i/MomuaL^  both  meaning,  to  make 
atonement,  to  propitiate,  in  81  instances;  and  by  their  derivative 
nouns  in  39  more;*    and   by  the   words  AiTpovj-  and  £io<j>opa^  both 

(*)  'E^i2.acK0/jai,  to  make  atonement,  occurs  in  78  instances:  Gen.  32:20;  Ex. 
30:10,  15,  16;  32:29;  Lev:  1:4;  4:20,  26,  31,  35;  5:6,  13,  i6,  18;  6:6,  30,  37;  8:15, 
34;  9:7,  9;  10:17;  12:7,  8;  14:18,  19,  21,  29,  31,  53;  15:15,  29;  16:6,  10,  II,  16,  17, 
17,  18,  20,  24,  27,  30,  32,  33,  33,  34;  17:11,  11;  19:22;  23:28;  Num.  5:8;  6:11;  8 
13,  19,  21;  15:23,  26,  26;  16:46,  47;  25:13,  31,  50;  35;33;  Deut.  21:8;  I.  Kings  3 
14;  II.  Kings  21:3;  I.  Chion.  7:49;  II.  Cliion.  29:24:  30:19;  Neh.  10:33;  Piov.  16 
15;  Ez.  16:62;  43:20,  26;  45:15,  17,  20;  Dan.  9:24. — Y^^UMaiq,  atonement,  occurs 
in  ^um.  29:11 — M^ikaaa,  atonement,  in  I.  Kings  12:3;  Ps.  48:7. — EffAea/iof,  atone- 
ment, in  Ex-.  30:10;  Lev.  23:27,  28:  25:9;  I.  Chron.  28:11.  —  'llaaKrfiai,  to  make 
atonement,  cccurs  in  three  instances,  Ps.  64:3;  77:42;  78:9.  —  'TXaafLoq,  atenement, 
in  Num.  5:8. — And  'YkaaTijpiov ,  mercy-seat  in  the  25  instances  already  recited  in  a 
preceding  note."     Page  56  of  his  Select  Discourses. 

(f)  Avrpov  occurs  in   Ex.    21:30;  30:12;    Num.    35:31,   32;  Prov.   6:35;    13:8. 
Kole  on  same  page  as  that  above. 


Passages.  44^ 

denoting  atonement,  ransom,  and  by  oKkayiia ,  siihstititte,  in  10: — in 
all  130.  These  facts  are  sufficient  to  prove  that  these  verbs  and 
their  derivatives  l^-aa.udc,  e^iAnaiJoc,  etc.,  as  nouns,  are  the  appro- 
priate words  in  the  Greek  for  rendering  the  word  caphar,  to  make 
atonement,  from  the  Hebrew."  *  On  pages  57-59,  we  think  he  clearly 
establishes  the  position  that  the  noun  llaaTijpiov  in  Rom.  3:25  means 
not  mercy-seat,  hwt  propitiatof-y  sacrifice  or  atoneinent.  In  a  footnote 
on  page  58,  he  quotes  from  Magee,  p.  166,  Vol.  I.,  who  in  a  footnote 
there  quotes  from  Michaelis  (Marsh's  translation)  as  follows: — 
"  Josephus,  having  previously  observed  that  the  blood  of  the  martyrs 
had  made  atonement  for  their  countrymen,  and  that  they  were 
tjcTTrep  avTii\)VKov  (victima  substituta),  "/f  roi)  i^vnvq  auapTiaq,  continues 
tinues  as  follows,  literally  translated — "And  by  the  blood  of  these 
devout  men,  and  the  atonement  (^i?Ma-//ptov')  of  their  death.  Divine 
Providence  saved  Israel."  Dwight  also  says — "  And  when  Chrysos- 
tom  uses  it  as  a  propitiatory  gift  ('The  Greeks  sent  a  propitiatory 
gift  to  the  Trojan  Minerva'),  we  feel  assured  that  Paul  meant  in  this 
passage,  Rom.  3:25,  'Whom  God  set  forth  to  be  an  atonement — or  a 
propitiatory  sacrifice — for  the  remission  of  sins.^  The  Apostles, 
therefore,  simply  use  the  sacrificial  language  of  the  Septuagint  ver- 
sion of  the  Old  Testament,  as  antitypically  fulfilled  in  the  sacrifice 
and  atonement  of  Christ,  in  the  passages  we  have  just  been  con- 
sidering." 

§  254.    PASSAGES THAT  WE    HAVE    REDEATPTION  AND    ARE   BOUGHT  BY, 

THROUGH,  OR  WITH  THE  BLOOD  OF  CHRIST  AS  OUR  RANSOM-PRICE. 

This  is  taught  in  the  passage  just  considered  (Rom.  3:24,  25). 
Verse  24  says — "being  justified  freely  by  his  grace  through  the  re- 
demption that  is  in  Christ  Jesus; "  and  verse  25  explains  how  the 
redemption  is  effected.  Christ  is  "  set  forth  publicly  a  propitiation 
through  faith  in  his  blood;"  and  this,  "that  God  might  Himself  be 
just  and  the  the  justifier  of  him  who  has  faith  in  Jesus."  Eph.  1:7 
says — "In  whom  we  have  our  redemption  through  his  blood."  Col. 
1:14  says — "In  whom  we  have  our  redemption;"  the  clause, 
"through  his  blood,"  is  unauthorized  in  this  verse,  but  certainly 
implied.  Heb.  9:15  says — "And  for  this  reason  he  is  the  mediator 
of  a  new  covenant,  that,  a  death  taking  place  for  the  redemption  of 
tlie  transgressions  that  were  under  the  first  covenant,  those  called 
to  the  eternal'  inheritance  may  receive  the  promise."  In  these  four 
passages,  the  word  rendered  redemption  is  uTtoXv-puaig ,  which  liter- 

(*)  Select  Discourses,  pp.  56-59. 


450  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

all)  means  the  delivera7ice  or  retrieval  oi  prisoners  of  war  or  others 
from  (^(iTTo^  a  state  of  bondage,  danger,  or  misery  by  the  payment 
of  a  ransoin  Q^ipov  or  av-uM-pov)  as  an  equivalent  for  them.  When 
used  to  express  the  deliverance  of  men  from  their  condition  as  sinners 
in  bondage  to  sin  and  its  involved  penal  consequence,  the  ransom 
which  procures  it  is  uniformly  declared  either  expressly,  or  in  lan- 
guage certainly  implying  it,  to  be  the  blood  of  Christ,  which  is  His 
life  or  soul  (Lev.  17:11).  .Vnrpwrr/c,  redemption,  the  preposition  airo, 
from,  being  left  off,  is  used  in  the  same  sense.  Heb.  9:12.  "  Neither 
by  the  blood  of  goats  and  calves,  but  by  his  own  blood,  he  entered 
in  once  into  the  holy  place,  having  obtained  eternal  redemption." 
The  verb  /trpc^fj,  formed  from  the  noun  "/Mi-pov,  a  ransom,  means  to  re- 
lease on  receipt  of  a  ransom,  to  hold  to  ransom,  but  is  not  used  in  the 
active  voice  in  the  New  Testament.  In  the  middle  voice,  it  means  to 
release  by  payment  of  a  ransom,  to  ransom,  to  redeem;  and,  in  the  pas- 
sive, it  means  to  be  ransomed,  redeemed.  It  is  used  in  the  middle  voice 
in  Titus  2:14 — "  Who  gave  himself yi?;'  {Jiiiper,  for  our  benefit  by  sub- 
stitution), us  (/.  e.,  on  the  cross),  that  he  might  redeem  us  from  all 
unrighteousness,  and  purify  unto  himself  a  peculiar  people,  zealous 
of  good  works."  Says  Van  Oosterzee,  in  his  Commentary,  in  Icco, 
Lange  Series — "  There  is  certainly  a  distinction  between  the  original 
significations  of  huper  and  anti;  but  that  here,  at  least,  the  idea  of 
substitution  cannot  be  set  aside  is  evident  from  what  immediately 
follows:  that  he  might  redeem  us,  etc.  For  when  Christ  gives  him- 
self a  ransom  {?mtpov),  he  gives  his  soul  as  a  ransom  in  the  stead  of 
those  who  otherwise  would  not  be  redeemed  from  the  enemy's 
power."  He  also  justly  says — "  It  is  downright  rationalistic  arbi- 
trariness to  maintain  (DeWette),  that,  in  passages  like  these,  what  is 
spoken  of  is  not  atonement,  but  exclusively  moral  purification. 
Paul  knows  of  no  other  purification  than  that  which  comes  from 
faith  in  the  atonement,  and  through  the  actual  appropriation  of  it." 
In  this  interpretation,  the  ablest  Commentators  concur  with  him. 
Christ  gave  Himself,  His  blood.  His  life.  His  soul  to  the  Father,  not 
to  Satan  or  any  other  power,  to  meet  the  demand  of  His  wrath,  or 
of  justice  in  His  infinite  nature,  in  order  that,  by  that  price,  He 
might  redeem  or  ransotn  us  from  the  penalty  of  our  unrighteousness, 
and  resultantly  from  all  our  unrighteousness  itself,  and  so  purify  us 
unto  Himself.  The  atonement  is  the  gate  through  which  all  grace 
securing  renewal  and  holiness  comes.  This  verb  is  used  in  the  pas- 
sive sense  in  I.  Pet.  1:18 — ''  Forasmuch  as  ye  know  that  ye  were  not 
redeemed  with  corruptible  things,  as  silver  and  gold  [paid  by  men 


PASSAGES.  451 

for  the  redemption  of  captives,  etc.]  from  your  vain  manner  of  life, 
handed  down  from  your  fathers;  but  with  the  precious  blood  of 
Christ,  as  of  a  Lamb  without  blemish  and  without  spot."  This 
"  comparison  of  the  blood  of  Christ  with  silver  and  gold  proves 
that  the  verb  rendered  redeemed  must  be  taken  in  its  original  sense  " 
(FronmiJller)  of  release  by  payment  of  a  ransom.  All  our  remarks 
on  its  meaning  in  the  preceding  verse  apply  to  it  here.  The  redemp- 
tion of  those  addressed  by  Peter  was  by  the  payment  of  the  ransom- 
price  of  the  blood  of  Christ,  the  great  antitypical  Lamb  of  God, 
substituted  for  their  own  endurance  of  the  penalty  deserved  by  their 
sins;  and  their  redemption  from  this  resulted  in  that  from  their  vain 
manner  of  life.  The  words  rendered  silver,  gold,  and  blood,  being 
in  the  Dative,  express  the  tnsiriiiiwiit  by  which  the  redemption  is 
effected  (Winer's  Gram,  of  N.  T.,  p.  216).  The  Greek  verb,  siayopa^u, 
to  pitrcliase  out,  to  buy  from,  is  used  in  the  same  sense  in  Gal.  3:13. 
"Christ  redeemed  [bought  us  from]  the  curse  of  the  law,  having 
become  a  curse  for  us  " — /.  c,  for  our  benefit  by  substitution  (Jiuper). 
In  L  Cor.  6:20,  "For  ye  are  bought  with  a  price" — /.  e.,  from  the 
curse  and  bondage  of  the  law  and  the  power  of  Satan  for  God,  to 
be  His,  not  your  own.  In  7:22,  "Ye  are  bought  ysixks.  a  price:  be- 
come not  ye  the  servants  of  men."  In  Rev.  5:9,  "And  they  sing  a 
new  song,  saying.  Thou  art  worthy  to  take  the  scroll,  and  to  open 
the  seals  of  it:  For  thou  wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed  {^xA'ii  buy) 
us  to  God  with  thy  blood  out  of  every  tribe,  and  tongue,  and  peo- 
ple, and  nation."  In  Gal.  4:5,  "That  he  might  redeem  them  tha* 
were  under  the  law  " — /.  c,  from  its  curse  and  bondage.  Of  course, 
this  verb,  as  well  as  the  preceding  and  its  kindred  nouns,  is  used 
figuratively  in  a  moral  sense.  The  purchasing  or  buying  from,  as 
well  as  the  redeeming,  is  not  strictly  like  the  commutations  or  ex- 
change transactions  primarily  signified  by  the  word;  but  each  ot 
these  wordi  and  the  nouns,  ransom  and  price,  as  used  in  these 
passages,  express  facts  so  essentially  a?ialogous  to  those,  that,  while 
there  are  differences  between  them  as  literal  and  as  figurative,  their 
essential  meaning  is  entirely  preserved,  and  they  as  really  and  fit- 
tingly express  the  moral  as  the  literal.  Sinners  are  condemned  to 
suffci  the  penal  curse  of  the  law;  they  morally  owe  that  suffering  to 
God  and  His  holy  universe  by  the  demand  of  eternal  justice;  they 
are  with  this  indebtedness  in  bondage  to  the  power  of  sin  and  Satan; 
they  cannot,  by  any  possibility,  deliver  themselves  from  this  penal 
curse  and  debt  to  justice  or  from  this  bondage;  and  Christ,  by 
assuming  their  place.,  suffering  this  curse  and  giving  His  own  precious 


452  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  OM  THE  ATONEMENT. 

blood  which  contained  His  life,  His  soul,  as  a  ransom  or  price  for 
them,  redeemed  them  on  condition  of  their  faith,  bought  them  for 
God  from  their  whole  evil  condition  as  sinners,  including  even  thei  ■ 
bodies  in  the  resurrection.  In  some  of  these  passages,  this  price  o 
ransom  is  stated;  in  others  of  them  not,  but  necessarily  implied, 
because  whenever  mentioned,  it  is  this.  The  Greek  verb  Trrp/  rroiEouat, 
middle  voice,  is  used  in  essentially  the  same  sense  as  the  two  preced- 
ing in  Acts  20:28.  "The  church  of  God  [or  of  the  Lord]  which  He 
Yi-Z.^  purchased  ox  acquired  for  Himself  ^^ith.  His  own  blood."  In  many 
other  places,  the  blood  of  Christ  is  specially  indicated  as  the  means 
of  redemption,  ransom,  deliverance  from  all  the  evil  of  sin.*  Says 
Moll  on  Heb.  9:11-15 — "This  ransom-price  is  the  blood  of  Christ 
as  of  an  entirely  spotless  lamb  (I.  Pet.  1:19;  Eph.  1:7;  Col.  1:14), 
and  is  here,  as  always  in  Scripture,  designated  as  a  price  divinely 
offered;  so  that  the  idea  of  the  ransom-price  as  paid  to  Satan  (Ori- 
gen,  Basil,  and  others  to  St.  Bernhard)  is  to  be  totally  rejected." 
"In  that  we  have  been  sold  under  sin  (Rom.  7:14),  we  have  become 
helpless  victims  of  the  wrath,  or  avenging  justice  of  God.  Againsu 
this  we  are,  according  to  the  Hebrew  mode  of  expression,  covered 
by  the  blood  shed  for  us,  which,  as  sacrificial  blood  has  an  expiatory 
significance.  The  redemption  can  thus,  on  the  one  hand,  be  con- 
cieved  as  the  payment  of  a  /Mvpuaig,  [ransotn'] ;  on  the  other,  as  a 
ikaajioq,  \_atonemeni,  expiation\.  It  is  invariably  effected  by  means 
of  a  substitutionary  satisfaction  arid  by  a  perfectly  valid  expiation. 
The  efficacious  element  in  the  blood  lies,  not  in  its  matter  or  sub- 
stance, but  in  the  life  7vhich  moves  in  it,  and  which,  by  means  oj  a 
special  act,  not  cojinected  with  the  course  of  nature,  has  bee?i  yielded 
up  to  death.  Lev.  17:11.  Since,  then,  the  crucifixion  of  Christ  falls 
not  under  the  category  of  the  slaughter  of  an  innocent  person,  o 
of  the  murder,  for  the  ends  of  justice,  of  a  righteous  man,  but  under 
that  of  the  surrendering  up  of  His  own  person  at  once  freely  anc! 
in  accordance  with  the  purpose  of  God  (Tit.  2:14;  I.  Tim.  2:6),  the 
significance,  power,  and  efficacy  of  this  death  must  correspond 
entirely  with  the  peculiar  nature  and  dignity  of  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  He  Himself,  however,  expressly  indicates  (iVlat.  20:28),  His 
death  as  the  su-bstitutionary  offering  of  the  ransom-price.  On  account 
of  the  nature  of  His  person,  consequently,  the  vicariousness  must 
be  complete,  the  satisfaction  all-sufficient,  the  ransom  actual  and 
eternal."     We  have  made  these  quotations  from  this  fine  expositor 

(*■)  Rom.  5:9;  Eph.  2:13;  Col.  i:2o;  Helj.  9:14;  10:29;  13:12,  20;  I.  John  1:7; 
5:6:   Rov.  5:9;  7:14;   i2:ii. 


TIE  GAVE  HIS  LIFE  FOR  US.  453 

on  account  of  their  eminent  truth,  clearness,  and  important  dis- 
criminations respecting  the  Scriptural  teachings  on  this  fundamental 
subject. 

§  255.    PASSAGES  DECLARING  THAT  HE  GAVE   HIS  LIFE  FOR  US. 

All  these  passages  teach  the  same  doctrine  of  substitution.  The 
way  in  which  he  gave  Himself  or  His  life  was  by  voluntarily  dyinj 
on  the  cross  for  us.  Mat.  20:28,  "  Even  as  the  Son  of  man  came — 
to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  {anW)  many."  Mark  10:45.  the  same. 
John  6:51,  "The  bread  that  I  will  give  is  my  flesh,  which  I  will  give 
for  {linper^  the  life  of  the  world.  10:11,  "  The  good  Shepherd  giveth 
his  life  for  the  sheep."  Verse  15,  "I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep.' 
15:13,  "Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down 
his  life  for  his  friends."  Gal.  1:4,  "Who  gave  himself  for  our  sins." 
2:20.  "The  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me  and  gave  himself  for  me.' 
Eph.  5:2,  "And  hath  given  himself  for  us  an  oifering  and  a  sacrifice 
to  God  for  a  sweet-smelling  savour."  Verse  25,  "As  Christ  also 
loved  the  Church  and  gave  himself  for  it."  I.  Tim.  2:6,  "  Who  gave 
himself  a  ransom  for  all."  Titus  2:14,  "Who  gave  himself  for  us 
that  he  might  redeem,'''  etc.  The  life  of  Christ  in  these  passages 
means  the  same  as  his  blood  \n  those  of  the  preceding  paragraph,  as, 
according  to  Lev.  17:11,  the  life,  v/hich  includes  the  soul,  is  in  the 
blood,  which  the  word  ''himself"  implies.  Christ's  giving  himself, 
or  His  life  or  soul  fcr  the  life  of  the  world,  or  for  the  Church,  us,  or 
Paul,  is  plainly  done  by  Him  as  the  great  antitypical  High  Priest, 
making  "  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  of  Himself,  or  of  His  blood. 
life,  or  soul  to  God"  "for  our  sins"  (Gal.  1:4;  Eph.  5:2),  and  thus 
a  ransom  (Mat.  20:28;  Mark  10:45;  I- Tim.  2:6;  Titus  2:14);  and 
in  being  thus  a  sacrifice  and  a  ransom  He  was  necessarily  a  substi- 
tute for  (anii,  in  the  stead  of)  many — of  the  %uo7-ld  provisionally,  oj 
the  Church  and  each  true  member  of  it  actually.  It  is  a  gross  con- 
tradiction of  terms  and  sense  to  deny  that  a  person,  a  victim,  a  life 
which  is  given  as  "a  ransom  instead  of  many" — "for  all" — "that 
he  might  redeem  us,"  etc. — "for  the  life  of  the  world" — "for  the 
sheep" — "for  the  Church,"  or  "for  us,"  or  "for  me" — "for  friends 
or  enemies  " — "for  our  sins" — and  as  "an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to 
God,"  is  a  substitute  from  the  nature  and  necessity  of  the  case;  or 
to  say  that  it  could  possibly  be  so  given,  if  not  such.  The  concep- 
tions and  principal  terms  of  these  passages  are  plainly  drawn  from 
and  based  on  those  of  the  law  and  of  prophecy  respecting  Christ, 
embodied  in  those  of  the  law.     For  ransom,  see  Ex.  21:30;  30:12; 


454  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Num.  35:31,  32;  Prov.  6:35;  13:8  (Septuagint);  for  giving  or  laying 
down  His  life,  see  Lev.  17:11;  Is.  53:10,  12;  for  "giving  Himself 
for  our  sins,"  and  "an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  for  a  sweet- 
smelling  savour,"  see  the  Levitical  law  on  sacrifices;  for  substitu- 
tion, it  is  radically  involved  on  all  ransom  and  sacrifice  ex  neces- 
sitate. 

§  256.    CHRIST,  AS  HIGH  PRIEST,  OFFERED  HIMSELF  TO  GOD,  A  SACRIFICE 
FOR    THE    SINS  OF  MANKIND. 

That  Christ,  as  High  Priest,  offered  Himself  to  God  as  an  offer- 
ing and  a  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  mankind  is  often  asserted  in  the 
New  Testament.  Eph.  5:2,  quoted  above.  Heb.  7:27,  "Who 
needeth  not  daily,  as  those  high  priests,  to  offer  up  sacrifice,  first  for 
his  own  sins,  and  then  for  the  people's:  For  this  he  did  once  for  all, 
when  he  offered  up  himself."  9:14,  "How  much  m.ore  shall  the 
blood  of  Christ,  who  through  the  eternal  Spirit  offered  himself  with- 
out spot  to  God,"  etc.?  25,  "And  not  that  he  may  offer  himself 
often,  as  the  high  priest  entereth  into  the  holy  place  every  year  with 
the  blood  of  others:  For  then  must  he  often  have  suffered  since  the 
foundation  of  the  world:  But  now  once  in  the  end  of  the  world 
[ages]  hath  he  been  manifested  to  put  away  sin  by  means  of  his 
sacrifice."  28,  "  So  also  Christ  was  once  for  all  offered  to  bear  the 
sins  of  many."  10:10,  "In  which  will  we  have  been  sanctified 
through  the  offering  of  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all."  12, 
"But  this  one,  after  he  had  offered  one  sacrifice  for  sins,  forever  sat 
clown  on  the  right  hand  of  God."  14,  "  For  by  one  offering  he  hath 
perfected  forever  them  that  are  sanctified."  "He  declared  that  His 
blood  was  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins,"  Mat.  26:28.  This  language 
is  simply  that  of  the  typical  law  applied  to  Him  as  its  great  fulfilling 
'_ntitype.  He,  the  Great  High  Priest,  offered  up  Himself  on  the  cross 
to  God  as  a  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  the  people,  thus  bearing  them 
in  their  stead,  as  the  typical  sacrifices  bore  the  sins  of  those  for 
whom  they  were  offered,  being  their  substitute,  in  suffering  for  them. 
There  is  nothing  figurative  in  the  language,  as  our  examination  of 
he  teachings  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  concerning  the  priest- 
hood and  sacrifice  of  Christ,  and  their  reality  as  typically  prefigured 
and  shadowed  out  in  the  priesthood  and  sacrifices  of  the  ceremonial 
law  clearly  certified;  and  to  attempt  to  get  rid  of  the  momentous 
reality  by  calling  the  inspired  declarations  of  it  figurative  is  nothing 
but  the  recklessness  always  engendered  by  the  adoption  of  an  antag- 
onist theory,  which  can  in  no  other  way  be  even  plausibly  main- 


THE  SUFFERINGS  AND  DEATH  OF  CHRIST.  455 

tained.  The  passages  are  purely  affirmative  of  fact  and  didactic; 
and,  if  their  language  is  merely  figurative,  their  writers  eitlier  lacked 
common  sense  in  asserting  them,  or  intended  to  deceive  and  mislead 
their  readers,  as,  according  to  this  supposition,  they  most  certainly 
have  generally  done.  All  canons  of  interpretation  are  struck  down 
by  such  arbitrary  substitutions  of  figures  for  literalities,  and  fancies 
for  facts;  and  criticism  is  turned  into  the  art  of  disinheriting  the 
true  meanings  of  the  words  and  sentences  of  authors  by  supplanting 
them  with  false  ones  foisted  into  their  place.  In  offering  Himself  as 
a  sacrifice.  He  did  what  He  came  to  do,  what  He  was  sent  by  the 
Father  to  do,  what  His  Father  willed  and  required  Him  to  do,  and 
acted  in  pure  obedience  (Heb.  10:5-10). 

§  257.    PASSAGES  CONCERNING  THE  SUFFERINGS  AND  DEATH  OF  CHRIST. 

In  immediate  connection  with  these  passages,  we  refer  to  those 
concerning  His  sufferings  and  death  on  the  cross.  That  He  fully 
knew  that  it  was  the  chief  part  of  His  mission  to  suffer  and  die  as 
He  finally  did  according  to  the  will  of  His  Father  is  clearly  manifest 
from  Mat.  16:21;  17:12;  Mark8:3i;  9:12;  Luke9:22;  17:25;  22:15. 
24:26,  46;  John  3:14;  and  that  He  did  so  in  fulfillment  of  the  types 
and  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  is  declared  by  Peter  in  Acts 
3:18;  I.  Pet.  i:ii;  and  by  Paul  in  Acts  26:22,  23;  17:3.  As  to  the 
fact,  purpose,  and  end  of  His  sufferings,  it  is  said  in  Heb.  2:9,  10, 
"  But  we  see  Jesus,  who  was  made  a  little  lower  than  the  angels 
because  of  his  suffering  of  death,  crowned  with  glory  and  honor; 
that  he  by  the  grace  of  God  might  taste  death  for  every  man.  For 
it  became  him,  for  whom,  etc.,  in  bringing  many  sons  unto  glory, 
to  make  the  Captain  of  their  salvation  perfect,  /.  e.,  as  a  Savior, 
through  sufferings."  In  5:8,  9,  "Though  he  was  a  Son  yet  learned 
he  obedience  from  the  things  which  he  suffered;  And  being  made 
perfect,  he  became  the  author  of  eternal  salvation  unto  all  them  tha". 
obey  him."  In  9:26,  "For  then  must  he  often  have  suffered  since 
the  foundation  of  the  world:  but  now  once  in  the  end  of  the  ages 
hath  he  been  manifested  to  put  away  sin  by  means  of  his  sacrifice." 
In  13:12,  "Wherefore  Jesus  also  that  he  might  sanctify  the  people 
with  his  own  blood,  suffered  without  the  gate."  In  I.  Pet.  2:21,  it  is 
said — "Because  Christ  also  suffered /i^r  {Jiiiper)  us."  Cliap.  3:18 
says — "For  Christ  also  hath  once  suffered  /^^z- (/^/V),  on  account 
of,  sins,  a  just  person  for  {hi/per),  the  benefit  of  by  substitution, 
(confirmed  by  rrpoaayec-j  following),  unjust  persons,  that  he  might  bring 
us  to  God,  being  put  to  death  in  the  flesh,"  etc.     Chap.  4:1  says — 


456  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  OM  THE  ATON'SMENT. 

"Forasmuch  then  as  Christ  hath  suffered y^/-  (Jiupcr,  for  our  benefit  and 
'in  our  stead,'  Fronmiiller)  us  in  the  flesh."  Chap.  5:1  says — "I — a 
witness  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ."  Now,  looking  at  these  passages, 
we  see  that,  in  the  first  of  them  (Heb.  2:9,  10)  the  death  which  Christ 
"tasted  for  {/ii/per)  every  man"  was  suffered  by  Him  when  "He 
gave  Himself  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  for  us,"  and  was 
therefore  sacrificial  and  so  substitutional."  It  became  God,  in  bring- 
ing many  sons  unto  glory,  to  make  the  Author  of  their  salvation 
perfect  through  sufferings"— that  is,  to  qualify  Him  perfectly  by 
subjecting  Him  to  His  sufferings  as  a  sacrifice  for  their  sins,  to  be 
the  Author  of  their  salvation.  See  5:8,  9.  In  Chap.  9:26,  Christ's 
suffering  once  "  to  put  away  sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  himself  "  is  set 
in  contrast  with  the  repetitious  suffering  of  the  victims,  with  the 
blood  of  which  the  Aaronic  high  priests  entered  yearly  into  the 
Holy  of  holies.  By  the  statement.  His  suffering  is  here  made  ident- 
ical with  His  own  sacrificial  death.  Let  this  be  noted  against  Dr. 
Bushnell's  assertion  *  that  the  Old  Testament  "  makes  nothing  ol 
the  pain  of  the  victim,"  "  the  pains  of  the  animal."  As  if  the  Law 
did  not  require  it  to  be  killed,  slain,  put  to  death,  and  it  could  be 
subjected  to  this,  and  its  blood,  with  its  life  or  soul  in  it,  could  be 
poured  out  without  pain,  even  death-agony!  Did  they  chloroform 
the  animals  before  killing  them  ?  As  if,  provided  the  blood  and 
soul  of  the  animal  could  have  been  somehow  extracted  from  it  with- 
out putting  it  to  the  agony  of  death,  it  would  have  served  at  all  as 
atonement !  It  was  by  the  inflicted  pain  of  death,  that  its  blood, 
soul,  life  was  given  to  make  atonement;  and,  when  he  says — "there 
is  no  vestige  of  retributive  quality  in  the  sacrifice" — "no  compen- 
sation in  the  sacrifices.  They  are  not  satisfactions,  nor  any  way 
linked  with  ideas  of  satisfaction — no  man's  lamb  pays  for  his  sin. 
They  are  never  offered  as  a  legal  substitution,"  one  is  compelled  to 
put  on  the  brake  hard,  to  keep  from  characterizing  the  bold  asser- 
tions as  they  merit.  If  the  animals  were  not  sacrificed  for  the 
transgressors,  as  required,  must  these  not  suffer  the  declared  penalty 
ot  their  sins?  If  they  were,  were  not  the  transgressors  exempted 
from  suffering  it  by  forgiveness  on  the  ground  of  these?  What  else, 
in  the  world,  is  this,  but  pure  legal  substitution  ?  than  legal  com- 
pensation and  satisfaction  for  their  sins?  than  the  lamb  or  othei 
animal  offered  paying  for  the  sin  of  him  who  bought  it?  If  God. 
the  Theocratic  Ruler,  would  not  forgive  transgressors,  except  on  the 
ground  of  these  sacrifices  being  made  for  them,  as   He  would  not 

(*)  Forgiveness  and  Law,  p.  66,  and  p.  87. 


CHRIST'S  DEATH  FOR  MANKIND.  457 

and  would  forgive  them  on  that  ground,  what  sheer  nonsense  and 
folly  it  is  to  utter  such  denials!  The  "  retributive  quality  "  of  course 
was  not  in  the  animal  sacrificed,  but  in  its  being  representatively 
substituted  in  its  sufferings  and  death  for  the  retributive  sufferings 
incurred  by  the  transgressor  as  declared  in  the  Law.  There  was  no 
such  "  quality  "  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  as  it  pertained  wholly  to 
the  deserved  sufferings  of  human  sinners,  for  whom  He  representa- 
tively substituted  Himself  in  it,  of  which  the  animal  sacrifices  were 
only  "■  types  and  shadows,"  the  real  meaning  of  them  as  such  never 
having  entered  the  Doctor's  mind.  What  could  he  understand  by 
the  inspired  words — "without  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remis- 
sion." Bold  denials  and  assertions  are  easily  made,  but  cannot  set 
aside  truth  and  fact,  nor  hide  want  of  knowledge  of  Scripture  and 
of  the  valid  mode  of  exegesis  by  which  to  find  its  real  meaning. 

§  25S.    PASSAGES    WHICH    SPEAK    OF    CHRIST'S    DYING    AND    DEATH    FOR 

MANKIND. 

We  first  adduce  Rom.  5:8,  which  says — "But  God  commendeth 
his  own  love  toward  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ 
died  for  us."  We  have  already  shown  that  in  this,  as  twice  in  verse 
7,  huper  must  mean  for  the  benefit  of  by  substitution.  Verse  9  con- 
firms this  by  saying — "  Much  more  then,  being  now  justified  by  his 
blood  \i.  e.,  His  substitution],  shall  we  be  saved  from  the  wrath  of 
God  throngh.  him."  Rom.  14: 15,  "  Destroy  not  with  thy  meat  him 
for  whom  Christ  died."  I.  Cor.  8:11,  "The  brother  for  (  <')l6.  )  whom 
Christ  died."  15:3,  "  Christ  died  for  our  sins."  H.  Cor.  5:14,  15, 
"  Christ  died/t;;-  all"  is  said  twice,  and  "  who  died  for  them  "  once, 
huper  in  each  case.  I.  Thess.  5:10,  "Who  A\ed  for  us."  Heb.  2:9, 
"The  suffering  of  death,"  and  that  "  he  should  taste  death  for  every 
man  "  are  said  of  Jesus;  and  it  was  "  by  the  grace  of  God"  towards 
men,  that  Jesus  tasted  death  for  each  of  them.  9:15,  "He  is  the 
mediator  of  the  new  covenant,  that  by  means  of  a  death,  for  the 
redemption  of  the  transgressions,"  etc.  From  all  we  have  shown,  it 
is  manifest  that,  in  all  these  places,  Christ's  dying  and  death  must  be 
understood  in  the  sacrificial  and  substitutional  sense.  He,  as  the 
Crreat  High  Priest,  offered  Himself  to  God  in  dying  for  men,  for  their 
sins,  to  save  them  from  the  necessity  of  dying  penally,  that  "  we 
might  be  saved  from  the  wrath  of  God,"  the  demand  of  justice  in 
God,  "  through  Him  " — that  His  dying  was/f/-  the  benefit  of  men  by 
the  substitution  of  Himself  in  it  for  them.  His  death,  therefore. 
His  blood,  His  otfering  Himself  to  God  a  sacrifice,  His  suffering  lor 


458  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

US  all  have  essentially  the  same  meaning.  All  the  passages  which 
speak  of  His  cross,  the  cross  of  Christ,  and  His  being  crucified  for 
us  signify  essentially  the  same.  For  cross  and  cross  of  Christ,  we 
refer  to  I.  Cor.  1:17,  18;  Gal.  6:14;  Eph.  2:16;  Phil.  2:8;  Col.  1:20; 
2:14;  Heb.  12:2 — for  crucified,  to  I.  Cor.  1:13,  23;  2:2;  Gal.  3:1. 
In  Gal.  3:13,  it  is  said — "Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the 
law,  having  become  a  curse  for  us:  for  it  is  written,  Cursed  is  every 
one  that  hangeth  on  a  tree."  The  curse  of  the  law  is  its  penalty  for 
sin,  and  Christ  redeemed  us  from  this  by  becoming  a  curse  for  us 
by  His  death  on  the  cross,  His  hanging  on  the  tree  of  the  cross  for 
us.  In  what  possible  sense,  not  nonsense,  could  His  obedience  be 
His  becoming  a  curse,  or  redeem  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  or 
be  hanging  on  the  tree  of  the  cross,  or  anything  else  than  His  expia- 
tory death  on  it  for  our  sins,  as  Deut.  21:22,  23  shows  that  one 
hanged  on  a  tree  was  so  hanged  in  punishment  for  his  sins. 

We  thus  close  this  lengthy  Chapter  on  the  teachings  of  the  New 
Testament,  additional  to  those  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  on 
the  substitutional  purpose  and  end  of  the  sufferings  and  death  of 
our  blessed  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  In  the  ensuing  Chap- 
ter, we  will  first  present  three  certain  inferences  from  the  showings 
in  this  and  the  three  preceding  Chapters  respecting  this  moi'nentous 
subject. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

Positions  certified  by  the  whole  foregoing  review  of  the  Scriptural 
teachings  concerning  atotiements,  especially  that  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  for  the  sins  of  mankind. 

§  259.    POSITION    FIRST,  THAT    THE  ATONEMENT    OF    CHRIST  WAS    MADE 
EXCLUSIVELY  TO  GOD. 

It  is  made  certain  by  the  whole  array  of  these  teachings  that 
the  only  immediate  purpose  and  end  of  the  sufferings  and  death  of 
Christ  were  to  make  an  atonement  to  God  for  the  sins  of  manlvind 
— to  produce  such  an  effect  in  Him,  and  so  in  His  relations,  as 
Ruler,  to  the  universal  and  eternal  society  under  Him,  that  He 
could  justly  suspend  or  waive  the  execution  of  the  demand  of  His 
holy  wrath  or  justice  against  them  for  their  sins  during  this  life  of 
gracious  probation,  that  whoever  of  them  will  fulfill  the  required 
conditions  will  be  freely  forgiven  on  the  rround  of  it,  and  of  it 
alone.  This  effect  made  it  perfectly  consistent  for  Him  to  exercise 
mercy  and  grace  towards  them  in  all  ways  accordant  with  His  infi- 
nite wisdom  and  their  freedom  and  mutual  relations,  to  communi- 
cate to  them  His  inspired  Word,  to  send  His  Holy  Spirit  to  exert 
His  influences  upon  them,  to- institute  the  Church  with  its  ministry, 
to  administer  His  Providences,  and  by  all  these  means  and  agencies 
to  bring  as  many  of  them  as  possible  to  comply  with  His  offered 
terms  of  salvation.  Thus  all  that  is  embraced  in  what  is  called  the 
moral-influence  theory  of  the  atonement,  and  much  more,  instead  of 
being  it,  or  any  part  of  it,  is  wholly  in  consequence  of  its  effect  in 
God  and  on  His  relations  to  the  universal  society;  while  it  was  in 
no  sense  to  men,  nor  directly  to  produce  any  effect  whatever  ///  them. 
As  His  holy  wrath  or  justice  was  aroused  against  them  by  their  sins 
with  its  sacred  demand  for  their  deserved  punishment,  and  this 
demand  must  be  met,  or  the  wliole  moral  system  and  society  be 
everlastingly  wrecked,  to  meet  it  and  so  to  provide  for  their  rescue 


46o  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

from  it  as  far  as  possible  He,  moved  by  His  mercy,  devised  the 
atonement  of  Christ,  as  a  representative  substitution  for  their  de- 
served punishment,  to  be  to  Himself  both  as  expiation  for  their  sins 
and  a  propitiation  of  Himself  towards,  or  reconciliation  to,  them,  in 
the  sense  that  He  could  consistently  act  towards  them  as  stated 
above. 

§  260.    POSITION    SECOND,   THAT,    IN    ITSELF,   IT    WAS    NOT   TO    PRODUCE 
ANY  EFFECT  IN  HUMAN    SINNERS. 

In  and  of  itself,  therefore,  the  atonement  was  not  designed  to 
produce  any  moral  effect  whatever  in  sinners — never  has  done  it, 
never  will  do  it,  never  can  do  it;  and  the  so-called  moral  view  of  it 
is  totally  unscriptural  and  absurd.  It  Avas  "an  offering  and  a  sacri- 
fice to  God"  by  our  Lord  for  the  sins,  the  violations  of  the  law  by  all 
men,  to  produce  in.  Him  and  on.  His  relations  as  in  and  over  the  uni- 
versal and  eternal  moral  society  the  effect  stated  for  men,  and  for 
nothing  else.  And,  as  it  could  be  for  sins  in  no  other  possible  sense 
than  for  the  punishment  deserved  by  them,  it  could  be  for  them  in 
no  other  possible  sense  than  that  of  a  substitute  for  that  punishment, 
which  is  only  saying,  that  its  end  was  simply  to  meet  and  satisfy  the 
demand  of  justice  in  the  law,  as  it  is  in  the  mind  of  God  and  His 
rational  creatures  against  sinners.  This  is  the  only  true  moral  view 
of  it;  but  //  was  the  morality  of  the  Godhead — of  the  Father,  as  uni- 
versal inoral  Ruler,  and  of  the  Son,  acting  atid  sjiffering  as  the  repre- 
sentative and  substitjite  of  our  world  of  guilty,  lost  sinners.  It  was 
the  all-surpassing  moral  action  of  Godhead  in  all  the  ages  past  and  to 
come;  for  He  can  never  repeat  it,  since,  even  if  there  possibly  should 
occur  another  such  occasion,  there  could  never  be  another  incar- 
nation, without  which  it  never  could  be  acted.  All  real  morality 
consists' in  acting  inwardly  and  outwardly  as  the  eternal  law  requires 
— that  in  the  heart  being  ever  the  same;  'that  outward,  though  from 
that  within,  being  ever  according  to  varying  relations  and  occasions. 
That  within  is  real  moral  love  of  moral  beings;  and  this  love  towards 
all  of  perfect  obedience  is  perfect  ethical  justice,  because  their 
natural  and  moral  rights  to  it  are  perfect,  so  that  it  is  entirely  their 
due.  Towards  those  who  have  sinned  under  mitigating  circum- 
stances, it  is  modified  to  mercy,  because  they  have  forfeited  their 
rights  to  it,  so  that  it  is  only  love  of  their  nature  and  its  possible 
good,  or  merely  benevolence  to  them.  Towards  all  who  have  sinned 
absolutely  or  without  mitigating  circumstances,  it  is  reduced  to  a 
mere  will  or  disposition  to  treat  them  no  worse  than  they  deserve  in 


WHEN'  GOD  PURPOSED  THIS  MEASURE.  461 

inflicting  upon  them  the  punishment  which  justice,  both  as  ethical 
towards  God  and  the  whole  moral  society,  and,  to  the  same  measure, 
as  retributive  towards  them,  positively  demands.  As  acted  out,  it 
is  doing  all  possible  for  the  highest  good  of  all  ever  obedient  in  the 
universal  and  eternal  society  and  system,  and  for  the  retrieval  and 
salvation  of  human  sinners.  Neither  they,  nor  any  other  creature 
or  creatures,  could  possibly  meet  the  demands  of  justice  against 
them,  either  as  ethical  towards  God  and  the  whole  society  under 
Him,  or  as  retributive  towards  them;  and,  unless  these  were  met, 
they  must  all  be  punished  as  these  demand.  God  only  could  meet 
them;  and,  as  the  only  constraint  upon  Him  to  do  it  must  have  been 
His  infinite  pity.  His  mercy,  and  the  obligation  to  exercise  it,  if  the 
demands  of  justice  permitted,  the  case  was  plainly  this,  that  these 
alone  constrained  Him  to  make  the  stupendous  intervention  of  the 
incarnation  and  atonement  of  Christ  to  render  the  exercise  of  mercy 
consistent  with  the  two  demands  of  justice  which  we  have  shown. 

§  261.    WHEN  GOD,  UNDER    THE    CONSTRAINTS    JUST    STATED,  PURPOSED 

THIS  MEASURE. 

They  constrained  Him  to  purpose  it,  not  when  Christ  was  sent 
to  execute  it,  but  when,  "before  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  He 
foresaw  the  fall  of  the  first  pair  and  of  their  race  in  them,  if  He 
should  spare  them.  It  was  then  that,  although  He  perfectly  fore- 
knew the  whole  history  of  the  dread  catastrophe  of  the  fall  and  its 
runious  entail  of  consequential  perversion  and  curse  upon  the  race, 
yet,  for  the  highest  and  peerlessly  best  universal  and  eternal  ends  of 
His  whole  creation,  He  determined  to  create  the  first  pair  and  to 
continue  their  race.  But,  moved  by  infinite  pity  for  them,  as  fore- 
seen, and  by  an  obligation  of  His  own  moral  reason  or  conscience 
to  do  the  best  morally  possible  to  rescue  and  save  them,  He,  at  tlie 
same  time,  determined  to  execute  the  whole  measure  of  redemption 
for  them,  though  involving  such  infinite  cost  of  self-denial,  self-sac- 
rifice, humiliation,  suffering,  and  sorrow  to  Himself.  This,  we 
believe,  is  essentially  a  true  expression  of  what  Scripture  reveals  on 
this  supreme  matter.  Of  course,  in  f/iis  statement,  God  means  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Godhead;  for  nothing  0/  it 
could  be  true,  if  God  is  nnipersonal.  It  was  because  ''God  so  loved 
the  world"  foreseen,  that  He  devised  this  measure,  and  that,  when 
His  predestined  time  came  for  executing  it,  '•  he  gave  his  only-begot- 
ten Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  eternal  life."     Plis  way  of  executing  it  shows  that  no  other  war; 


462  SCRTTTURAT.   TEACH Ih^GS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

possible,  and  that,  as  the  atoning  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  were 
a  sacrifice  offered  by  Him  to  God  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  they 
were  and  could  be  for  no  other  direct,  immediate  purpose  than  to 
be  a  provisory  substitution  for  the  retributive  punishment  deserved 
by  their  sins  and  demanded  by  the  justice  of  the  violated  law.  It  is 
justice  in  the  law,  which  is  the  one  vast  container  that  holds,  the  one 
great  shield  that  guards,  the  one  mighty  bond  that  binds  together 
the  universally  common,  reciprocal  interests,  concerns,  rights,  and 
dues  of  all  embraced  in  the  whole  eternal  moral  society  and  system, 
including  God  Himself,  who  is  the  Author  and  Ruler  of  all;  and  for 
Him  not  to  maintain  this  absolutely  unimpaired,  or  to  disregard  it 
in  the  slightest  degree  would  be  utterly  immoral,  a  fundamental  and 
eternal  wrong  or  injustice  to  that  whole  society  and  Himself,  and 
subversive  of  His  just  and  benevolent  character  forever.  On  the 
other  hand,  because  perfectly  maintaining  it  is  conforming  to  the 
eternal  law,  of  which  it  is  an  intrinsic  quality,  doing  this  is  absolute 
righteousness  in  Him,  as  it  is  maintaining  the  universal  obligation 
to  render  perfect  moral  love  to  each  other  in  perpetual  interchange, 
which  is  pure  ethical  justice,  by  which  alone  the  interests,  concerns, 
rights,  and  dues  of  every  one  and  all  can  be  perfectly  maintained. 
What,  then,  can  God's  execution  of  the  measure  of  the  atonement 
by  the  substitution  of  Christ  in  His  sufferings  and  death  to  meet  the 
demands  of  justice  against  all  human  sinners,  both  as  ethical  towards 
the  whole  everlasting  moral  society  and  as  retributive  towards  them, 
be,  but  the  peerless  moral  transaction  of  even  God  Himself? — 
especially  when  it  is  considered  that  it  was  done  in  behalf,  not  of 
friends,  but  of  human  sinners,  all  His  enemies  against  all  reason  to 
the  contrary,  and  with  such  infinite  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  of 
both  the  Father  and  the  Son?  This  is  the  only  moral  view  of  the 
atonement;  and  the  so-called  moral  view  of  it  is  only  a  view  of  its 
coiiscquenlial  influence  and  effects  on  portions  of  successive  genera- 
tions of  mankind  substituted  for  it  in  all  its  unspeakable  moral 
grandeur  and  glory.  In  rejecting  this,  it  rejects  the  law  itself,  as 
having  the  quality  of  justice  in  it,  and  thus  a  social-moral  character, 
by  which  alone  the  intelligent  universe  is  bound  together  into  one 
moral  society  and  system,  and  turns  it  into  a  mere  thing  of  the  will 
of  God,  instead  of  being  founded  in  His  eternal  moral  reason  or 
nature,  and  so  im])lanted  in  the  moral  reason  or  nature  of  all  created 
moral  beings;  and  it  thus  robs  it  of  any  real  principle  or  ground  in 
moral  nature.  This  view  is  therefore  both  immoral  and  anti-moral, 
a  poor  starveling   mockery  of  the  real,  Scriptural  one.     The  whole 


THIRD  POSITION.  463 

case  is  thus  manifest.  The  universal  and  eternal  moral  system,  con- 
stituted by  the  law,  immutable  as  God,  and  absolutely  glorious  with 
His  glory,  is  in  no  sense  set  aside,  superseded  or  impaired  by  the 
redemptive  measure.  It  is  not  Christianity,  nor  strictly  a  part  of  it. 
Christianity  is  solely  God's  eternally  devised  best  possible  measure 
to  redeem  human  sinners  from  the  condemnation  and  curse  of  that 
system,  incurred  by  their  sin,  and  to  restore  them  to  harmony  with 
it,  and  besides,  to  aggrandize  and  endow  the  restored  with  consum- 
mate good  and  glory  in  the  endless  future.  Whoever,  therefore, 
rejects  it  rejects  the  one  only  rescue  and  restorative  possible,  the 
one  only  reinedy  devised  by  God  for  the  plague  and  curse  of  sin, 
and  with  it  all  the  boundless  love,  mercy,  and  grace  of  God  it  dem- 
onstrates and  displays;  all  grounds,  either  in  this  demonstration  and 
display,  or  in  the  promises  and  invitations  connected  with  it,  of  faith 
in  God  or  of  warranted  hope  for  any  good  or  for  escape  from  the 
destiny  of  all  in  persistent  conflict  with  the  eternal,  unchangeable 
moral  system.  Infidelity  is  immoral  mania;  and  that  alike,  whether 
it  be  positive  and  declared  or  practical  disregard  of  the  one  only 
remedy  provided  with  such  infinite  love  and  at  such  infinite  cost  of 
the  I'riune  God. 

§  262.    THIRD  POSITION,  THAT   THE    TWO  PRECEDING    ARE  CERTAINTIES 
RESPECTING  IT  AGAINST  ALL  THEORIES. 

3.  We  have  been  asked  many  times — "What  theory  of  the 
atonement  do  you  adopt  ?  What  theory  of  it  do  you  think  is  true?  " 
and  some  say — "There  are  so  many  theories  of  it,  that  we  don't  know, 
or  we  hardly  know,  which  of  them  is  true,  or  what  to  believe  con- 
cerning it."  Our  response  is  this:  In  such  questions  and  sayings, 
the  term,  theory,  is  used  in  the  sense  of  hypothesis,  and  has  no  real 
application  to  the  subject  of  the  atonement,  nor  has  it  in  any  of  its 
senses.  The  proper  question  is,  what  is  the  Scriptural  teaching  or 
doctrine  concerning  the  atonement?  When  this  is  asked,  we  be- 
lieve we  have  shown,  that  the  whole  range  of  this  teaching,  typical, 
antitypical,  declaratory  directly  and  in  sure  implication,  relational 
to  other  teachings  dependent  from  and  connected  with  it,  uncontra- 
dicted by  any,  basal  to  all  pertaining  to  the  salvation  of  human  sin- 
ners, necessary  to  a  realization  of  the  infinite  pity,  merciful  love,  and 
grace  of  God,  absolutely  righteous  and  so  moral,  is  unequivocally 
that  Christ  in  His  sufferings  and  death  was  a  substitute  provisionally 
for  the  whole  race  of  human  sinners,  to  exempt  them  from  the 
necessity  of  suffering  the  punishment  deserved  by  their  sins,  if,  dur- 


454  SCRIPTURAL   TEACff/N'GS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ing  the  gracious  probation  of  this  life,  they  comply  with  the  required 
ethical  conditions.  Every  view  of  it  in  conflict  with  this  teaching 
is  unscriptural  and  false,  a  mere  human  guess  or  invention.  Men 
neither  know  nor  can  know  anything  whatever  about  it,  except  what 
the  Scriptures  teach.  If  anything  can  be  decisively  expressed  and 
settled  beyond  reasonable  doubt  by  human  language,  when  taken  in. 
its  obvious  meaning  according  to  the  known  usage  of  any  particular 
language,  or  the  established  canons  of  interpretation,  nothing  else 
is  more  frequently,  variously,  and  certainly  taught  in  Scripture  than 
what  we  have  shown  it  teaches  concerning  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  Christ  as  a  provisory  atonement  to  God  for  the  sins  of  mankind 
— that  is,  as  a  substitution  for  the  penal  suffering  deserved  by  them 
for  their  sins,  so  that,  if  they  would  comply  with  the  declared  con- 
ditions of  its  being  made  an  actual  one  for  them,  they  might  escape 
the  endurance  of  that  suffering.  We  can  think  of  no  possible  way, 
in  which  this  could  be  taught  more  explicitly  than  it  is  in  the  Scrip- 
ture with  such  abounding  repetition  and  variety  of  modes.  And 
just  as  definitely  and  positively  is  it  taught,  that  there  was  no  other 
way  in  which  a  single  sinner  of  the  whole  race  could  possibly  be 
saved  from  suffering  the  penalty  of  his  own  sins.  The  great  motive 
reason  which  impelled  each  Person  of  the  Triune  Godhead  to 
assume  and^  execute  His  part  in  the  stupendous  transaction  was  infi- 
nite pity  and  merciful  love  for  mankind  as  beings,  all  irretrievably 
lost  forever  as  sinners,  unless  rescued  in  this  one  way.  According 
to  the  Divine  plan,  the  human  and  Satanic  actors,  who  vented  their 
measureless  malignity  and  madness  upon  Christ  in  the  all-surpassing 
tragedy  of  His  sufferings  and  death,  only  performed  the  parts  they 
did  by  the  infinitely  wise  permission  and  over-ruling  Providence  of 
God  for  the  accomplishment,  in  opposition  to  their  design,  of  the 
ends  of  His  own  infinite  mercy  and  grace  towards  mankind.  But 
His  sufferings  inflicted  by  their  outrages  upon  His  body  were  evi- 
dently vastly  less  than  those  of  His  human  soul  and  sympathetically 
of  His  infinitely  susceptible  Divine  nature.  It  was  by  the  price,  the 
mighty  sum  of  them  all,  that  He  redeemed  human  sinners,  and  not  by 
any  mere  sympathetic  feelings  for  them.  It  was  "  the  travail  of  His 
soul,"  and  "  His  pouring  it  out  even  unto  death,"  which,  as  "  the  lamb 
of  God,"  He  took  upon  Himself  and  l?ore  till  He  could  cry — "  It  is 
finished,''  which  alone  constituted  the  atonement  to  God  for  "  the 
sins  of  the  world,"  and  thus  conditionally  redeemed,  ransomed, 
bought  them  all  from  the  demands  of  justice  against  them. 


THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  465 

§  263.    SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS    RESPECTING    THE   EXTENT  OF  THE 
ATONExMENT. 

In  Cliapter  XIV.,  §  154,  we  showed  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
what  the  extent  of  the  atonement  must  be;  and  our  purpose  here  is 
to  show  that  the  position  taken  there  is  precisely  that  of  the  Divinely 
inspired  Scriptures.  John  3:16,  17  says — "For  God  so  loved  the 
world,  that  he  gave  his  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth 
in  him  might  not  perish,  but  have  eternal  life.  For  God  sent  not 
his  Son  into  the  world  to  judge  the  world;  but  that  the  Avorld  through 
him  might  be  saved."  As  to  the  meaning  of  the  term  world  here, 
Schaff  says  in  a  note  in  Lange's  Comm.  on  John,  at  verse  16 — • 
"  World  va.Q2sv%'\y\  the  Scriptures  and  in  popular  language  (i)  the 
whole  universe;  (2)  the  earth;  (3)  all  men  (so  here);  (4)  the  pres- 
ent order  of  things  as  distinct  from  the  future  world;  (5)  the  un- 
godly world,  in  opposition  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  and  as  subject 
to  Satan,  who  is  called  the  prince  of  this  world"  (John  12:31). 
But  it  never  means  the  elect  or  the  saints,  which  would  be  just  the 
reverse  of  the  last  mentioned  signification.  If  it  had  this  meaning 
here,  Christ  might  have  said:  "  God  so  loved  the  world  '■'-'  =•'■  =•' 
that  the  world  (instead  of  whosoever  believeth)  might  not  perish." 
The  universality  of  God's  merciful  love  and  the  all-sufficiency  of 
Christ's  atonement  (which,  however,  must  not  be  confounded  with 
its  actual  efjlciency),  is  most  clearly  taught  here,  and  in  such  pas- 
sages as  I.  Tim.  2:6;  II.  Pet.  3:9;  I.  John  2:2  (which  illustrates  our 
passage):  "  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins;  and  not  for  ours  only, 
but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  worlds  Nothing  in  professed 
exegesis  can  be  more  baseless  and  arbitrary  than  to  impose  upon 
this  word  in  either  of  the  four  places  in  John  3:16,  17,  or  in  the  one 
place  in  I.  John  2:2,  the  meaning  elect,  or  any  other  whatever  than 
mankind  entire  as  in  sin.  It  would  be  just  as  warranted  and  no  more 
groundless  and  opposed  to  its  true  sense,  to  say  it  means  the  Arabs, 
the  Esquimaux,  or  any  other  people  or  part  of  mankind.  Nay,  to 
say  it  means  this  is  not  as  utterly  contradictory  of  its  real  import, 
as  it  is  to  say  it  means  the  elect,  because  it  certainly  signifies,  in  'J\ 
these  cases,  those  perishingly  in  sin,  and  needing  an  atonement  that 
they  may  be  saved.  In  them  all,  it  means  such  only;  and  to  make 
it  mean  elect  is  to  substitute  for  its  true  meaning  one  it  never  had, 
merely  to  support  a  dogmatic  assumption,  equally  in  conflict  with 
truth.  One  error  demands  another.  Besides,  in  the  passage  in  I. 
John  2:2,  in  which,  we  doubt  not,  the  Apostle  designedly  expresses 
the  real  import  of  John  3:16,  the  whole  last  part  of  the  verse  is  anti- 


466  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHIN'GS  OM  THE  ATONEMEiSlT. 

thetic  to  "for  orcr  sins"  in  the  first  part;  and  it  could  not  be  more 
strongly  expressed  in  so  few  words.  "  Not  for  ours  only  "  denies 
that  the  propitiation  was  for  believers  only;  "  but  also  "  signifies 
that  it  was  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  besides;  "  whole  "  strength- 
ens world,  adding  positiveness  to  the  idea  of  zcniversaliiy,  the  entire 
7)iass  of  mankind.  It  thus  cuts  off  the  possibility  of  any  limitation. 
In  John  4:42  and  I.  John  4:14,  Christ  is  asserted  to  be  "  the  Saviour 
of  the  world."  In  the  first  of  these  verses,  the  words  were  uttered 
by  the  Samaritans,  but  are  clearly  endorsed  by  John  as  correct.  In 
the  second  of  them,  John  himself  speaks  with  utmost  emphasis — 
"And  we  have  seen  and  testify,  that  the  Father  sent  the  Son  to  be  the 
Saviour  of  the  world."  If  His  atonement  was  a  designed  provision, 
for  the  world,  this  characterization  in  both  these  places  is,  in  a  pro- 
found sense,  true;  if  not,  but  for  the  elect  only,  it  is  not  true  in  any 
sense,  but  false.  Equally  decisive  with  all  the  foregoing  passages  are 
the  following:  Heb.  2:9;  Rom.  5:18,  19;  II.  Cor.  5:14,  15;  I.  Tim. 
2:6.  The  first  of  these,  Heb.  2:9,  says,  "that  he  by  the  grace  of  God 
should  taste  death  for  every  man."  These  words  express  the  de- 
signed universality  of  the  atonement  in  the  strongest  fovm,  by  dis- 
tributing mankind  into  individuals,  for  every  one  of  whom  Christ 
tasted  death.  They  utterly  exclude  any  limitation  whatever.  The 
second  of  them,  Rom.  5:18,  says — "As  through  one  idiW,  Judg/ne/it 
came  upon  all  men  to  condemnation;  so  also  through  one  righteous 
act,  the  gift  came  upon  all  men  unto  justification  of  life."  The  con- 
trasted relation  of  the  one  fall  to  all  men,  as  bringing  condemna- 
tion unto  them,  and  that  of  the  one  righteous  act  to  all  men,  as 
bringing  the  gift  of  grace  unto  justification  of  life  unto  them,  are 
exactly  parallel  in  universality.  No  limitation  is  possible  in  the 
latter  case  any  more  than  in  the  former.  Verse  19  presents  the  same 
contrast  of  universality,  "  the  many  "  in  the  one  case  being  precisely 
equal  to,  and  as  universal  as  "the  many"  in  the  other.  The  third 
of  them,  II.  Cor.  5 :  14,  15,  says — We  "  having  judged  this,  that  if  one 
died  for  all,  then  all  died:  And  he  died  for  all,"  etc.  The  motive 
which  led  Christ  to  die/6'r  all  wa.^  His  merciful  love  for  them;  but 
His  dying  was  judicially  in  tlieir  stead  for  their  advantage.  Because 
He  thus  died  as  tlie  representative  substitute  of  all,  it  was  the  same 
in  effect  as  if  evtxy  one  of  them  also  judicially  died  when  He  died, 
/.  e.,  suffered  the  penalty  themselves  of  their  sin.  "The  all"  {ul  navrer) 
did  not  die  when  He  did  either  literally  or  morally — not  even  if  all 
be  cut  down  to  some,  the  elect,  which  no  sound  principle  of  interpre- 
tation will  permit  to  be  done;  and  hence  the  only  sense  in  which  it 


THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  467 

is  or  can  be  true,  that  all  died  when  He  did,  is  the  judicial  and 
vicarious  one;  and  because  "  they  which  live  "  are  mentioned  anti- 
thetically to  "the  all,"  the  "all"  must  be  taken  in  its  proper,  uni- 
versal sense.  The  fourth  of  them,  I.  Tim.  2:6,  says — "Who  gave 
himself  a  ransom  for  all."  In  verse  4,  the  Apostle  had  declared  the 
will  of  God,  not  His  effective,  but  His  urging,  merciful  will,  apart 
from  necessary  conditions  to  be  fulfilled  by  them,  that  all  men 
should  be  saved — not  some,  nor  all  classes  of  men,  but  all  individuals 
of  the  race;  giving  this  as  the  great  reason  why  "  supplications, 
prayers,  intercessions,  and  thanksgiving  should  be  made  for  all 
men"  by  Christians  (verse  i).  Verse  5  asserts  as  the  ground  rea- 
sons why  God  so  wills,  (i)  that  He  is  only  one,  implying  that  He  is 
therefore  equally  the  God  of  all  races  and  nations,  having  the  same 
interest  in,  and  relations  to,  all  as  His  creatures  and  lost  sinners; 
since,  if  there  were  more  Gods  than  one,  one  for  every  race  and 
nation,  their  several  wills  might  differ,  none  of  them  willing  any  to 
be  saved,  but  such  as  were  specially  related  to  him  as  their  Creator 
or  otherwise;  (2)  that  there  is  oi\\y '' otie  Mediator  between  God 
and  men,"  whose  will,  therefore,  must  be  identical  or  in  perfect  har- 
mony as  to  its  objects  with  that  of  the  one  God;  since,  if  there 
were  more  mediators  than  one,  which  would  imply  a  plurality  of 
gods,  their  several  wills  would  differ  with  those  of  the  different  gods; 
so  that  to  pray  to  any  of  the  plurality  of  gods  through  the  mediator 
peculiar  to  him  would  be  absurd,  while,  because  there  is  but  one 
God,  who  wills  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  one  Mediator  between  Him 
and  all  men,  to  pray  for  all  must  be  "good  and  acceptable  in  the 
sight  of  God  our  Saviour."  This,  moreover,  is  made  the  more 
manifest  by  the  fact  that  this  one  Mediator  is  "  the  man  Christ 
Jesus,"  and  therefore  naturally  and  morally  alike  interested  in  and 
related  to  all  men;  and  further,  by  the  additional,  crowning  fact, 
that  He  voluntarily  "gave  Himself"  [/.  e.,  in  atoning  sufferings  and 
death],  "  a  ransom  for  all  " — -a  ransom  instead  of,  and  for  the  advan- 
tage of,  all.  Hence,  not  only  the  clause  under  consideration  of 
itself,  but  the  entire  connection  and  argument  absolutely  exclude 
any  limitation  of  those  for  whom  Christ's  death  was  a  ransom,  and 
demand  the  meaning  of  the  totality  of  mankind. 

There  are  a  number  of  other  passages  which  we  might  adduce 
in  support  of  this  position,  but  those  presented  settle  it  beyond  any 
successful  controversy  and  make  reference  to  others  entirely  un- 
necessary. Nor  do  any  which  speak  of  Christ's  sufferings  and  death 
as  an  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  elect,  without  reference  to  the 


468  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHING.^  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

rest  of  mankind,  in  the  least  conflict  with  th'e  truth  taught  in  these, 
that  it  was  for  all.  For,  of  course,  if  it  was  for  all,  it  was  for  any 
part  of  the  race;  and  the  fact  that  it  was  for  all  alike  as  a  provision 
is  in  no  way  or  degree  inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  it  was  designed 
to  be  actual  or  for  application  only  to  those  Avhom  God  foreknew, 
elected,  and  gave  to  His  Son  as  His  reward  for  making  it.  In  the 
nature  of  the  case,  it  could  not  be  made  actual  by  forgiveness  to  any 
who  would  persist  in  sin  to  the  end  of  their  probation,  or  except  to 
such  as  should  by  regeneration  be  fitted  to  receive  its  Divine  appli- 
cation, which  is  by  forgiveness. 

§  264.    A  CITATION  FROM  TRENCH's    SERMONS  REFUTED. 

We  have  before  referred  to  the  view  of  Dr.  Washburn,  trans- 
lator of  Van  Oosterzee's  Commentary  on  I.  Timothy  in  Lange's 
Series,  appended  to  the  comment  on  Chap.  2:6,  and  expressed  our 
earnest  objection  to  it,  and  to  that  of  Coleridge  which  he  quotes.  We 
here  notice  a  passage  from  Trench's  Sermons,,  of  like  purport,  which 
he  appends  to  Van  Oosterzee's  5th  Doctrinal  and  Ethical  Remark 
on  the  Mediatorship  of  Christ,  following  his  comments  on  verses 
1-7  of  that  Chapter,  "which,"  Dr.  W.  says,  "sets  forth  the  living 
view  of  the  mediatorial  sacrifice,  as  it  is  distinguished  alike  from  any 
forensic  theory  of  imputation,  and  any  denial  of  it  on  moral  grounds." 
It  is  this: — "Could  God  be  well  pleased  with  the  sufferings  of  the 
innocent  and  holy?  What  satisfaction  could  He  find  in  these? 
Assuredly  not:  but  he  could  have  pleasure — nay,  according  to  the 
moral  necessities  of  his  own  being,  he  must  have  the  highest  joy, 
satisfaction,  and  delight — in  the  love,  the  patience,  the  obedience, 
which  those  sufferings  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  displaying.  *  *  * 
[We  omit  two  of  the  sentences  quoted,  as  not  important  to  our  pur- 
pose, and  add  the  last  of  them.]  Christ  satisfied  herein,  not  the 
Divine  anger,  but  the  Divine  craving  after  a  perfect  holiness,  right- 
eousness, and  obedience  in  man."  We  have  very  high  respect  for 
this  author,  and  it  greatly  surprises  us  to  read  such  sentences  from 
his  pen.  For,  if  he  designed  them  as  a  solution  of  the  problem  of 
the  atoning  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ,  not  only  has  he  entirely 
missed  the  real  mark  of  difficulty  in  it,  but  he  has  directed  his  aim 
altogether  away  from  it.  No  one  can  suppose  rationally  that  God, 
or  any  good  being,  can  have  pleasure  of  any  kind  or  degree  in  the 
suffering  of  any  creature,  much  less  of  any  moral  being,  however 
guilty,  vastly  less  of  a  perfectly  holy  one,  immeasurably  less  of  His 
Eternal,   all-obedient,  and  holy  Son,   for  its  own  sake  or  in  itself. 


TRENCirS  SERMONS.  469 

But  the  fact  to  be  explained  i?,  tliat  God,  notwitlisLanding"  what  we 
thus  say  and  fully  believe,  mtwithstanding  His  own  infinite,  eternal 
love  for  and  pleasure  in  His  Son,  and  that  Son's  absolute  and  eternal 
holiness,  continued  without  flaw  in  His  incarnate  obedience  and 
consummated  so  amazingly  in  yielding-  Himself  to  His  atoning  suf- 
ferings and  death,  did  eternally  foreordain  that  He  should  undergo 
these,  though  so  infinitely  disagreeable  to  Him  in  themselves,  as 
fundamental  in  the  plan  of  redemption  for  mankind  foreseen  as 
sinners,  while  the  Son  also  eternaliy  designe.';  to  come  in  the  fullness 
of  time  on  purpose  to  undergo  them — that  the  Father,  accordingly, 
sent  Him  into  the  world,  when  the  time  came,  consummately  for 
this  very  purpose,  and  He  came  for  the  same — that  it  was  really  the 
Father  Himself,  as  the  sovereignly  wi/li/ig,  all-coiitrol/i/i;^  ai^ent,  who 
subjected  Him  to  them,  piercing  Him  for  our  transgressions,  crush- 
ing Him  for  our  iniquities,  inflicting  the  chastisement  to  secure  our 
peace  with  Himself  upon  Him,  causing  to  meet  or  laving  upon  Him 
the  iniquity  of  us  all,  bruising  Him,  putting  Him  to  grief,  delivering 
Him  for  our  offences,  not  sparing  His  own  Son,  but  delivering  Him 
up  for  us  all,  forsaking  Him  in  the  acme  of  His  suffering,  making  Him 
to  be  sin  for  us,  vvho  knew  no  sin,  making  Him  a  curse  for  us;  while 
it  was  of  the  Son's  own  most  free  will,  that  "He  gave  Himself  for 
our  sins,  '•'  '■'  *  according  to  the  unll  of  our  God  and  Father,"  mak- 
ing His  soul  a  sin-  or  guilt-offering,  pouring  it  out  unto  death, 
carrying  the  iniquities  and  bearing  the  sin  of  many,  giving  His  life  a 
ransom  for  many,  for  all,  redeeming  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law  to 
God  by  His  blood,  buying  and  purchasing  them  v/ith  His  blood, 
being  obedient  unto  death,  dying  for  us,  suffering  for  us,  the  just  for 
the  unjust,  giving  Himself  for  us  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to 
God,  being  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours  only,  but 
also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  being  such  that  God  might  be 
just,  and  the  justifier  of  him  who  believes  in  Him,  expiating  our  sins, 
being  delivered  by  the  determinate  counsel  and  foreknowledge  of 
God,  etc.  While  the  human  actors  in  abusing,  bruising,  and  cruci- 
fying Him  acted  out  their  own  malignant  will  without  the  least  com- 
pulsion or  constraint  from  God;  still,  in  all  their  atrocious  part, 
they  were  simply  doing  "whatsoever  His  hand  and  counsel  deter- 
mined before  to  be  done."  Our  Lord  Himself  told  Pilate — "Thou 
couldest  have  no  power  against  me,  except  it  were  given  thee  from 
above,"  as  He  had  before  told  the  Pharisees  and  Jews  to  whom  He 
spoke  the  parable  of  the  Good  Shepherd — "  I  lay  down  my  life." 
"No  man  taketh  it  from  me,   but  I  lay  it  down  of  myself.     I  have 


470  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I  have  power  to  take  it  again.  This  com- 
mandment have  I  received  of  my  Father."  The  primary  and  deter- 
mining^ agents  in  the  stupendous  transaction  were  not  human,  but 
the  eternal  Father  by  His  sovereign  will,  commandment,  providence, 
and  personal  course  towards  the  eternal  Son,  incarnated  that  He 
might  suffer  and  die  as  He  did,  and  the  Son  in  all  His  part,  consum- 
mated by  giving  Himself  up  to  this  mission  and  laying  down  His 
life  of  His  own  absolutely  free  choice  and  obedience  to  His  Father's 
will  and  commandment,  that  He  might  thus  be  a  "propitiation  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  world."  The  human  monsters,  who,  as  Divinely 
permitted  and  used  instruments,  abused  and  crucified  Him,  had 
great  pleasure  in  His  sufferings;  but  //  is  not  said  in  all  Scripture 
that  the  Father  had  any  pleasure  whatever  in  them,  durifig,  before,  or 
after  their  endurance,  although  it  was  He  that  bruised  Him  and  put 
Him  to  grief.  We  cannot,  therefore,  understand  why  Trench  should 
at  all  propose  and  discuss  the  question  of  the  quotation  from  him; 
for  it  is  not  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  atonement  in  any  way  what- 
ever, and  is  no  Christian  problem.  Inflicted  suffering  is  never  for 
its  own  sake,  but  always  for  an  end  beyond  itself,  as  medicine  or 
surgery  is.  It  is  always  to  moral  beings  for  penalty  of  sin,  for  dis- 
cipline, for  the  benefit  of  others,  or  for  the  vindication  or  mainten- 
ance of  the  honor,  authority,  rights,  or  other  interests  of  God;  and 
it  is  never  greater,  probably  always  less,  in  amount  or  degree,  than 
the  good  secured  by  it.  Nor,  recurring  to  the  quotation,  did  God 
have  any  pleasure,  joy,  satisfaction,  or  delight  in  the  love,  patience, 
and  obedience,  which  those  sufferings  of  Christ  gave  Him  the  oppor- 
tunity of  displaying,  for  their  own  sake,  or  in.  themselves.  For  the 
love,  patience,  and  obedience  of  Christ,  displayed  in  His  sufferings, 
no  more  than  the  sufferings  themselves,  were  for  their  oivn  sake. 
They  were  all  for  an  end  or  ends  beyond  themselves — /.  e.,  they  were 
displayed  by  Him  acting  ministerially  in  fulfillment  of  His  mission 
and  for  its  accomphshment,  and  not  acting  unofficially;  and,  there- 
fore, like  his  sufferings,  they  were  executive  means  of  an  end  beyond 
themselves,  as  in  the  nature  of  the  case  executive  action  must  be. 
God,  consequently,  could  have  no  pleasure  in  them,  any  more  than 
in  the  sufferings,  except  as  means.  The  end  or  ends  of  the  love, 
patience,  and  obedience  displayed,  as  of  the  sufferings,  is  beyond 
and  above  them,  and  give  them  all  their  importance.  Nor  did 
Christ,  in  these,  "satisfy  the  Divine  craving  after  a  perfect  holiness, 
righteousness,  and  obedience  in  man."  For,  as  they  were  jneans  to 
an  end  or  to  ends  beyond,  above,  more  important  and  more  valuable 


THE  TRUE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  QUESTION.  471 

than  they,  which  was  not,  nor  included,  the  satisfaction  of  any  such 
craving,  it  was  no  part  of  the  object  of  God  in  inflicting,  or  of  Christ 
in  enduring,  those  sufferings,  to  satisfy  it.  There  is  nothing  to  sup- 
port this  notion  in  all  the  language  of  Scripture  directly  relating  to 
the  end  of  Christ  in  enduring,  or  of  the  Father  in  inflicting,  those 
sufferings,  and  it  is  mainly  against  and  absolutely  intolerant  of  it. 
That  end  was  outside  of  the  Divine  will,  so  that  it  could  not  be 
directly  or  tj/inwdiaUly  accomplished  by  it.  It  was  one  which,  for 
accomplishment,  put  both  the  Father  and  the  Son  under  an  absolute 
necessity  of  fulfilling  the  parts  they  respectively  did,  the  one  in 
inflicting,  the  other  in  enduring;  and  the  love,  patience,  and  com- 
mandment of  the  Father  in  subjecting  the  Son  to  His  sufferings  cost 
Him  infinite  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice,  as  really  as  the  love, 
patience,  and  obedience  of  the  Son  in  enduring  them  cost  Him  the 
same.  "  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only-begotteti  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  might  not  perish,  but  have  eternal 
life."  The  solution  of  the  real  problem  proposed  in  this  quotation 
is  as  far  from  the  true  one,  as  the  antipodes  are  from  us;  and  our 
object  in  considering  it,  as  we  have,  is  that  here,  at  the  close  of  our 
canvass  of  the  Scriptural  teachings  concerning  the  suflering  and 
death  of  Christ,  we  might  the  better  see  what  they  all  show  is  the 
only  true  one. 

§  265.    THE  TRUE  SOLUTION  OF  THE    QUESTION    CONCERNING    THE  SUF- 
FERINGS   AND    DEATH  OF  CHRIST. 

This  question  is  not  in  reference  to  the  obedience  of  Christ, 
nor  to  any  moral  qualities  or  excellences  He  displayed,  but  to  His 
sufferings  and  death.  It  is,  for  what  end  or  ends  did  He  endure 
these?  The  general  answer  is,  not  for  any  pertaining  immediately 
to  Himself,  but  for  one  or  more  pertaining  wholly  to  mankind.  The 
Father  gave  Him  and  He  gave  Himself  to  endure  them,  that  man 
might  not  perish,  might  not  be  lost,  might  be  delivered  from  the 
wrath  to  come,  might  be  saved  from  tvrath,  might  have  eternal  life, 
might  be  redeemed  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  etc.  He  gave  Himself 
for  us,  died  for  us,  for  all,  tasted  death  for  every  man,  gave  His 
life  a  ransom  for  many,  gave  Himself  a  ransom  for  all,  redeemed, 
bought,  purchased  us  with  His  blood,  shed  it  for  many  for  the 
remission  of  sins,  was  made  sin  for  us,  carried  the  iniquities  and 
bore  the  sin  of  many,  gave  Himself /6'/-  us  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice 
to  God,  appeared  to  put  away  sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself,  was 
once  offered  to  bear  the  sins  of  many,  made  reconciliation  for  the 


472  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

sins  of  the  people  by  Himself  purging  our  sins,  is  the  propitiation 
for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  etc.  These  and  many  other  Scrip- 
tural expressions  prove  incontestably  that  the  immediate,  foremost 
thing  designed  by  both  Father  and  Son  was  specially  by  the  Son's 
sufferings  and  death,  as  a  sacrifice  to  God,  to  save  mankind  from  the 
7iecessity  of  themselves  suffering  the  penalty  of  their  sins,  on  con- 
ditions required.  They  prove  that  Christ  endured  them  in  the  stead 
and  for  the  advantage  of  all  men,  substituting  Himself  for  them,  as 
the  representative  of  them  all,  that  H-^  might  save  them  from  suffer- 
ing the  penalty  incurred  by  their  sins,  the  wrath  (  w?))  of  God,  the 
wrath  to  come.  They  also  prove,  beyond  any  evasion,  that,  to  have 
this  efficiency  for  man,  His  sufferings  and  death  were  designed  to 
produce  a  direct  effect  on  God  Himself  in  relation  to  human  sin- 
ners— that,  by  being  an  expiation  for  their  sins  as  an  offering  and 
sacrifice  for  them,  they  propitiated  Him  towards  them.  That  is,  by 
removing  His  holy  wrath  or  demand  of  justice  against,  they  secured 
the  exercise  of  His  merciful  favor  to,  them. 

And  here  we  ask,  if  there  was  no  demand  of  justice  that  men 
should  be  punished  according  to  their  sins,  and  if  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  Christ  were  not  to  meet  and  satisfy  this  demand,  what  was 
or  could  be  the  absolute  necessity  for  them,  in  order  that  men  might 
be  saved  ?  That  there  was  such  a  necessity  for  them,  the  Scriptural 
teachings  demonstrate.  The  alternative  was,  either  these,  or  all 
men  must  perish.  Then,  God  eternally  purposed  and  willed  them 
in  His  redemptive  plan.  He  sent  His  Son  into  the  world  purposely 
to  undergo  them  and  under  His  positive  will  and  command  to  do 
so.  He  prearranged  for  them  from  the  fall  of  man  till  He  sent  Him, 
and  foretold  them  in  manifold  prophecies,  types,  and  institutions  as 
predestined  and  necessary;  and,  as  the  designing,  all-controlling 
cause,  He  really  inflicted  them.  The  Son  came  incarnated  pur- 
posely to  undergo  them;  He  repeatedly  referred  to  the  prophecies 
and  types  of  the  Old  Testament  to  show  that  He  was  destined  to, 
and  must,  undergo  them;  He  declared  again  and  again  that  it  was 
the  will  and  command  of  His  Father  that  He  should,  and  that  His 
doing  so  was  in  obedience  to  that  will  and  command;  and  He  de- 
clared at  numerous  times  and  in  numerous  modes  that  it  was  neces- 
sary that  He  should  undergo  them  in  order  to  save  lost  men  from 
perishing,  to  be  a  ransom  for  them,  and  that  they  might  have  remis- 
sion of  sins  and  eternal  life.  The  Apostles  unanimously,  constantly, 
and  in  various  modes  asserted  and  assumed  that  they  were  neces- 
sary in  order  to   the  rcmissiou   oi  siub,  beiUL,   uisLead   of  the  penai 


WHAT  MUST  BE   TRUE  OF  PUNISHMENT.  473 

sufferings  deserved  by  men,  and  a  propitiation  to  God  to  reconcile 
Him  to  them,  that  they  might  be  delivered  from  the  wrath  to  come. 
In  our  examination  of  the  Levitical  Law,  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
the  53d  Chapter  of  Isaiah,  Rom.  5:12-19,  and  numerous  other  pas- 
sages in  the  New  Testament  which  plainly  refer  to  that  Law,  and 
that  prophetic  Chapter,  and  many  others  not  specially  referring  to 
them,  we  have  seen  and  shown  that  their  incontestable  teaching  is, 
that  Christ  suffered  and  died  as  the  representative  substitute  of  our 
guilty  race,  as  a  sin-offering  and  sacrifice  to  cover  or  atone  for  their 
sins,  so  as  to  relieve  them  from  themselves  suffering  their  penalty — 
that,  in  and  by  His  sufferings  and  death.  Lie  carried  and  bore,  that 
is,  endured,  the  penal  suffering  deserved  by  their  sins — that  He  thus 
expiated  them  and  was  a  propitiation  to  God  for  them — that  thus 
only  was  God  reconciled \.o  man,  and  remission  or  forgiveness  of  their 
sins,  by  which  they  are  freed  from  liability  to  suffer  their  penalty, 
made  possible  and  certain  to  every  one  of  the  race  who  would 
"  receive  the  reconciliation  "  and  become  reconciled  to  God  in  turn. 
It  is  therefore  radical  in  the  Scriptural  teachings,  that  Christ's  suf- 
ferings and  death  had  their  immediate  end  in  God — were  to  effect  a 
change  in  His  attitude  and  consequent  action  towards  human  sin- 
ners by  changing  His  moral  relations  to  them,  as  obnoxious  to  the 
demand  of  His  justice,  both  as  ethical  to  Him  and  His  universal, 
eternal  society  and  as  retributive  towards  them.  They  related  to 
the  penalties  which  that  duplicate  demand  made  it  incumbent  on 
Him  to  inflict  on  them  for  their  sins;  and  it  was  to  meet  and  satisfy 
that  demand,  and  thus  to  lay  a  basis  for  actually  setting  the  penal- 
ties aside  for  all  of  them  who  would  comply  with  the  declared  con- 
ditions, that  Christ,  as  the  representative  of  the  race,  substituted 
Llis  own  sufferings  and  death  for  those  they  would  endure  if  those 
penalties  were  inflicted  on  themselves.  It  was  absolutely  necessary,  if 
all  or  any  of  human  sinners  were  to  be  saved,  that  Christ  should 
do  this,  and  that  the  Father  should  send  Him  under  the  law  and 
His  command  to  do  it;  for  justice  is  the  eternal  basis  and  guar- 
dian of  all  moral  love,  order,  peace,  and  welfare  in  the  universe,  and 
without  it  none  of  these  can  possibly  exist.  Therefore,  not  to  inflict 
deserved  penal  suffering  on  sinners,  nor  on  a  substitute  for  them, 
and  to  treat  them  as  if  they  had  not  sinned,  but  had  been  obedient, 
would  be  consummate  injustice  and  infinite  sin  in  God,  with  the  sure 
result  that  all  love  for  Him,  and  all  reciprocal  moral  love  between 
His  rational  creatures,  all  order,  harmony,  and  happiness  must  for- 
ever perish,  leaving  only  anarchic  chaos  and  desLiucuon.      We  thus 


474  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

see  both  the  necessity  that  Christ  should  suffer  and  die,  and  that  He 
did  so  to  meet  and  satisfy  the  demand  of  eternal  justice  in  God  and 
all  moral  natures  against  mankind  as  sinners.  Nor  can  any  other 
necessity  for  His  sufferings  and  death,  nor  any  other  end  to  be 
achieved  by  them  be  even  imagined  by  the  dealers  of  the  substitu- 
tional atonement  which,  by  any  inventive  showin.T,  will  consist  with 
the  whole  range,  of  the  Scriptural  teachings  which  we  have  exhib- 
ited. For,  according  to  all  these  deniers,  the  end  for  which  He 
endured  them  was  not  in  God  at  all,  but  in  men,  not  in  the  nexus  oi 
a  social-moral  system  and  society,  but  individually,  not  as  liable  to 
any  positive  ])enalty  at  all  for  their  sins,  but  to  their  mere  natural 
consequences  only,  all  which  contradicts  and  nullifies  the  sense  oi 
the  whole  congress  of  those  teachings,  and  thrusts  into  them  instead 
one  as  alien  and  adverse  as  the  soul  of  the  basest  coward  on  earth 
would  be,  if  thrust  into  the  place  of  the  soul  of  Achilles  or  any 
grander  hero.  And,  as  His  sufferings  and  death  could  only  be  to 
act  as  a  solvent  on  the  sin  and  enmity  of  those  to  whom  they  were 
made  known,  so  as  to  win  them  to  abandon  their  sin  and  with  it  its 
mere  natural  consequences,  they  could  have  no  relation  whatever 
to  the  rest  of  mankind  who  have  no  knowledge  of  them,  and  could 
in  no  sense  be  for  their  sins  or  them  !  How  can  all  that  is  asserted 
in  those  teachings  respecting  the  fieccssity  of  His  enduring  them,  as 
"  an  offering  and  sacrifice  to  God  "  for  the  sins  of  our  race,  to  accom- 
plish with  and  in  Hitn  for  them  all  that  they  declare,  possibly  con- 
sist with  their  being  merely  such  a  solvent  upon  and  in  men?  how 
with  His  being  merely  an  example  for  men  of  perfect  obedience,  or 
merely  a  Divinely  sent  moral  and  religious  teacher,  or  anything  else 
than  what  they  assert?  We  cannot  but  pity  the  man  or  men  who 
cannot  see  and  understand  the  moral  grandeur  and  glory  displayed 
by  the  Father  and  the  Son  in  executing  their  parts  of  the  stupendou:> 
measure  of  the  atonement  "  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,"  r.s 
asserted  in  all  these  Scriptural  teachings,  and,  in  opposition,  try  t(.) 
convert  the  obedience  of  Christ  or  the  mere  sympathetic  love-act ii:;:s 
of  God  iox  men  into  atonement,  which  neither  of  them  is  in  an  7 
true  sense,  whether  called  moral  or  vicarious. 


CHAPTER  X.XIL 

Examination  of  tvJiat  is  called  the  Governmental  Tlieory  of  th' 
Atonement. 

As  some  of  the  greatest  and  best  men  and  theologians  of  the 
Christian  Church,  followed  by  a  large  portion  of  it,  have  held  and 
do  hold  this  Theory,  we  iind  ourselves  constrained  to  indicate 
wherein  we  deem  it  defective.  With  sincere  deference  to  the  great 
and  good  adherents  of  this  view,  we  here  invite  patient  attention  to 
our  reasons  for  regarding  it  as  defective. 

§  266.    STATEMENT  OF  THIS  VIEW. 

It  makes  the  necessitating  reason  for  punishment  and  the  atone- 
ment lie,  not  in  the  demand  of  the  law  with  its  justice,  as  it  is  in  the 
nature  of  God  and  all  created  moral  beings,  but  in  what  is  essential 
to  the  nature  of  a  government  instituted  by  God,  of  His  mere  will, 
over  His  intelligent  creatures,  as  necessary  to  prevent  sin  and  its 
ruin  and  to  secure  obedience  and  its  good  among  them  to  the 
greatest  degree  possible.  It  is  a  devised  gowQxnvao.ixX.  of  benevolence 
to  them,  and  of  devised ]\x'~,\\cq,  especially  punitive,  only  as  necessary 
to  maintaining  and  carrying  it  on.  It  is  a  creation  of  the  benevolent 
will  of  God,  acting  according  to  His  infinite  wisdom;  and  its  whole 
legislation  and  administration  are  products  of  the  same  will  and 
wisdom.  The  sanctions  of  its  law,  both  of  rewards  and  punishments, 
are  wholly  for  its  maintenance  as  a  polity,  being  designed  and 
adjusted  entirely  with  reference  to  that,  being  devised  and  admin- 
istered to  express  to  mankind  and  the  intelligent  universe  God's 
estimation  of  His  law  and  government  and  of  obedience  to  them, 
His  abhorrence  of  sin  and  displeasure  at  sinners,  and  His  determi- 
nation to  maintain  His  law  and  government,  and  so  His  rectoral 
authority  and  honor,  by  inflicting  on  incorrigible  human  sinners  the 
penalty  which  He  has  attached  to  His  law — the  end  of  the  expression 


476  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHIiVGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

of  both  threatening  and  executing  it  being,  as  much  as  possible  to 
deter  from  sin,  and  to  conserve  in  obedience.  The  object  of  the 
atonement  is,  of  course,  to  express  this  same  cluster  of  ends;  and, 
as  the  execution  of  the  threatened  penalty  to  secure  this  is  called 
public  justice,  so  the  provisional  substitution  of  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  our  Lord  for  that  execution  was  for  the  ?<2i\x\e.  public  Justice. 
We  think  this  is  a  substantially  correct  statement  of  this  view  as  to 
its  positive  contents.  But,  to  understand  it  clearly,  we  must  notice 
what  it  involves  of  both  assumption  and  rejection.  First,  then? 
according  to  it,  neither  the  penalty  to  be  inflicted  on  men  for  their 
sins,  nor  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  in  its  stead  was  to  meet 
and  satisfy  any  demand  of  justice  in  the  nature  of  God  and  other 
moral  beings  against  sinners;  for  it  involves  a  denial  of  such  a 
demand.  The  cluster  of  ends  stated  excludes  this;  and,  since  the 
penalty  is  not  inflicted  on  men  in  this  life  of  probation,  nor  till  after 
the  resurrection  and  judgment,  only  the  threatening  of  it  and  the 
atonement,  as  far  as  known  and  understood  by  them,  are  expressions 
to  them  or  to  other  moral  beings,  before  the  penalty  is  inflicted,  of 
the  ends  of  either.  But  the  whole  effect  of  the  expressions,  whatever 
they  are,  must  ever  be  cntirelv  in  and  upon  than,  and  not  at  all  in  and 
upon  God.  As  far  as  the  cluster  of  ends  stated  relates  to  Him,  it  is 
not  as  a  Person,  having  personal  lights,  dues  from,  or  claims  jipotr, 
His  rational  creatures,  which  sinners  have  violated  and  trampled 
upon,  for  doing  which  they  owe  penal  suffering  to  Him,  but  only  as 
a  Ruler,  having  official  rights,  authority,  responsibilities  to  discharge 
and  honor  to  maintain;  so  that  neither  the  penal  sufferings  to  which 
they  are  liable  are  at  all  retributory,  nor  are  those  of  Christ  instead 
of  them  as  such,  for  any  sin  or  wrong  against  Him  as  a  Person  or  a 
moral  Being.  Nor,  since  the  expression  of  that  cluster  of  ends, 
whether  made  by  the  penal  sufferings  of  sinners  themselves  or  by 
those  of  Christ  in  their  stead,  is  not  to  God  even  as  Ruler,  but  to 
men  and  His  other  subjects  only,  is  it  designed  to  have,  or  can  it 
have,  any  effect  in  Him  even  as  Ruler.  As  His  government  is  thus 
simply  a  polity  devised  in  His  wisdom  and  constituted  by  His  mere 
unobliged  will,  both  the  threatening  and  the  execution  of  its  penal- 
ties for  sin,  and  the  measure  of  the  atonement  were  adopted  as 
essential  to  its  best  ]:)0ssible  administration,  both  for  preventing  evil 
and  for  securing  good.  As  the  atonement  is  a  measure  to  make  it 
consisteht  with  the  law  and  the  government  which  God  has  thus 
instituted,  both  it  and  the  threatening  and  execution  of  the  appointed 
penalty  for  sin  are  for  the  cluster  of  ends  we  have  noted  by  the  im- 


WHAT  WE  HOLD  AS  THE   TRUE   VIEW.  477 

prcssion  on  His  subjects  which  these  expressions  of  those  ends  make 
— that  is,  they  are  solely  to  meet  the  demands  of  what  is  called /«^- 
lic  justice,  which  is  only  what  the  public  good  requires  for  its  best 
protection  and  promotion. 

§  267.    STATEMENT  OF  WHAT  WE  HOLD  TO  BE  THE  TRUE  VIEW. 

In  Part  I.  of  this  Work,  it  is  shown  that  justice  is  an  intrinsic 
quality  of  the  law  as  it  is  in  and  from  the  nature  of  God  and  all 
created  moral  beings;  and  that  it  makes  the  love  enjoined  due  from 
God  and  every  other  moral  being  to  every  other  one,  not  having 
forfeited  the  natural  right  to  it,  and  from  all  supremely  to  God. 
That  is,  justice  in  the  law  in  all  makes  the  obligation  to  render  the 
love  enjoined  universally  reciprocal;  so  that  not  rendering  it  to  God 
and  every  other  one  is  really  robbing  Him  and  every  one  of  that 
due,  and  is  fundamental  injustice  to  every  other  one,  and  supremely 
to  God,  both  as  a  Person  and  as  Ruler  of  all.  It  is  also  shown,  we 
think,  that,  in  principle,  ethical  and  retributive  justice  are  one;  and 
that,  according  to  the  moral  reason  and  conscience  of  mankind, 
retributive  penal  suffering  is  due  from,  or  owed  by,  all  sinners  to 
God  and  the  universal  society  under  Him  as  the  correlative  or  sub- 
stitute for  the  due  of  love,  of  which  they  have  robbed  Him  and 
them.  It  is  shown  that  justice  is  thus  the  all-binding  social  nexus, 
and  that  it  cannot  be  done  or  violated  towards  God  or  man  without 
being,  ipso  facto,  done  or  violated,  in  principle,  towards  all  moral 
beings.  Justice  or  injustice  done  to  one  necessarily  distributes  itself, 
in  principle,  to  every  other  one  on  earth,  in  heaven,  and  in  all  worlds 
and  ages.  In  a  most  real  sense,  the  whole  intelligent  universe  is  the 
object  of  all  ethical  justice  and  injustice — that  is,  of  all  moral  action, 
and  consequently  of  all  rewards  and  punishments.  This  principle 
is  neither  strange  nor  strained.  It  is  recognized  and  acted  upon  in 
all  civil  governments.  The  perpetrator  of  murder,  arson,  burglary, 
theft,  or  any  other  crime  against  one  or  a  few  is  hgld  guilty  of  hav- 
ing in  principle  committed  it  against  the  whole  civil  society,  and  to 
be  the  injurer  and  enemy  of  all  in  that  society,  and  is  judged  and 
punished  accordingly.  But  human  governments  are  extremely 
defective,  and  from  ignorance  and  many  limitations  cannot  admin- 
ister perfect  justice  according  to  this  recognized  priucij^ile,  if  they 
would,  while  (jod  can  and  will.  For  justice,  both  as  ethical  and  as 
retributive,  respects  Him  immeasurably  more  than  it  does  all  crea- 
tures, because,  in  His  nature,  rights,  dues,  interests,  character,  and 
all  relations  to  them.  He  is  infinitely  superior  to  them  all  together. 


473  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

It  respects  Him  Personally  and  as  Creator,  because,  by  His  natural 
and  all  other  rights,  supreme  love  and  all  it  involves  of  reverence, 
homage,  and  all  obedience  and  treatment  are  absolutely  due  to  Him 
from  every  one  of  them;  and,  besides  all  they  do  justly  or  unjustly 
to  Him,  whatever  they  do  either  way  to  one  another  is  also,  by 
measureless  transcendence,  done  to  Him  as  due  or  violation  of  due 
to  Him.  Tlien,  it  respects  Him  as  Moral  Ruler  of  all,  having  the 
responsibility  to  H^imself  of  so  ruling  as  to  secure  the  greatest  pos- 
sible love  and  all  good  in  His  universal  and  eternal  dominion.  For, 
whoever  treats  one  or  some  of  his  fellow  subjects  justly  or  unjustly, 
in  principle  not  only  treats  them  all  in  the  same  way,  but  also  God 
Himself,  both  as  a  Person  and  as  Ruler,  in  an  incomparably  higher 
degree.  In  either  case.  He  rewards  him,  not  only  as  having  so 
treated  his  fellow  subjects,  but  also  Himself  supremely,  according 
to  the  only  rule,  not  arbitrary,  but  applicable  and  really  just  in  any 
proper  sense  of  the  word — that  is,  according  to  the  measure  of  his 
actual  desert,  as  He  sees  it,  and  not  to  secure  ««  invented  justice 
called  public,  which  is  really  not  justice  at  all,  none  certainly  to  God, 
and  none  demanded  by  the  law  towards  His  universal  society.  If 
the  dues  of  justice  are  not  secured  to  God  according  to  His  rights, 
interests,  and  concerns,  since  His  and  those  of  His  subjects  are 
necessarily  intertwined  by  the  same  law  in  them,  how- can  theirs  be, 
and  thus  the  one  consummate  end  of  the  universal  law,  society,  and 
system  be?  It  is  for  the  sake  of  this  end  that  retributive  punish- 
ment is  inflicted  to  secure  those  dues;  and,  therefore,  if  it  can  be 
secured  better  or  even  equally  without  its  infliction  on  sinners,  this 
can  be  waived,  and  they  can  be  saved  on  return  to  obedience.  But, 
whenever  the  infliction  must  be  made,  it  primarily  and  directly 
respects  the  demand  of  justice  in  God  Himself,  called  His  wrath  and 
by  other  names,  and  then  the  demand  of  the  same  in  all  finite  moral 
natures,  especially  all  holy  ones,  its  object  being  to  meet  and  satisfy 
these  demands  for  the  sake,  and  as  part,  of  the  end  stated. 

§  2 68.    WHAT  WE  HAVE  IN  THIS    STATEMENT. 

In  this  statement,  we  have  an  absolutely  just  Ruler,  just  moral 
government,  and  just  public  justice,  guarding  and  maintaining  the 
fundamental  ethical  due  of  universal  reciprocal  love,  and  so  the 
consummate  good  of  God  and  His  loyal  universe  against  all  the 
injustice  of  sin  and  sinners,  and  not  a  mere  analogy  of  a  human 
ruler,  government,  and  public  justice,  operating  by  mere  prudential 
positive  sanctions  and  expression  to  accomplish  administrative  ends. 


WHAT  WE  HAVE  IN  THIS  STATEMENT.  479 

According  to  it,  the  infliction  of  retributive  suffering  has  a  real,  defi- 
nite, absolutely  just  measure  and  end,  which  is  the  greatest  possible 
good  of  God  and  as  many  as  possible  of  His  rational  creatures  to 
all  eternity:  Whereas,  according  to  the  theory  under  consideration, 
the  infliction  has  only  the  vague,  indefinite,  political  end  of  express- 
ing to  those  creatures  the  cluster  of  ends  we  have  stated,  and  is 
made,  not  because  sinners  deserve  to  be  punished,  nor  because  their 
penal  sulTering,  according  to  the  measure  of  their  actual  ill-desert,  is 
due  to  God  and  those  creatures,  but  merely  to  uphold  and  maintain 
that  cluster  of  ends.  But  this  statement  has  farther  confirmation. 
We  have  shown  that  justice  is  not  a  thing  of  institution,  but  of  moral 
nature;  that  enacted  law  and  instituted  government,  Divine  or 
human,  can  neither  make  nor  unmake  it;  and  that  no  government 
nor  institution  can  be  valid,  except  as  it  is  founded  upon  it;  so  that 
none  can  be  a  thing  of  mere  will.  Divine  or  human,  or  other  than 
simply  an  authoritative  embodiment  of  the  applications  of  the  ethical 
and  retributive  demands  of  justice  to  moral  beings  in  their  relations 
to  each  other  and  to  it.  While  these  applications  are  numerous  and 
various  beyond  finite  thought,  there  is  and  can  be  but  one  justice, 
which  is  the  root  or  trunk  from  which  all  these  shoot  forth  as 
branches,  just  as  there  is  but  one  Divine  nature;  and  it  is  as  eternal 
and  changeL^s  as  that  nature  which  contains  it.  It  rules  God  abso- 
lutely in  all  His  acts  and  courses  to  which  it  applies  in  the  sense  in 
which  His  nature  does,  because  it  is  demanded  by  His  nature;  and 
His  love  and  all  His  voluntary  action  are  always  within  and  accord- 
ing to  its  behests  and  ends,  never  thwarting  nor  disregarding  them. 
Nor  is  the  law,  which  includes  it,  a  creation  of,  or  changeable  by, 
His  will;  but  it  is  a  rule  of  action  for  Himself  and  for  all  His  rational 
creatures,  issued  by  His  own  nature  and  by  theirs  created  like  His. 
All  His  moral  action  is  absolutely  according  to  it,  and  to  its  appli- 
cations to  those  creatures  in  their  relations  to  each  other  and  Him, 
and  to  Himself  as  related  to  them.  It  required  Him  to  have  a  per- 
fect moral  government  over  them,  and  to  administer  it  in  perfect 
accordance  with  all  the  applications  of  His  law  to  them  and  to  Him- 
self as  related  to  them,  and  so  that  "justice  and  judgment  should 
be  the  habitation  of  his  throne; "  and  He  has  no  option  to  do  other- 
wise any  more  than  He  has  to  be  unholy  or  not  good.  It  follows  that, 
as  justice  is  fundamental  in  the  law  and  one,  it  cannot  be  set  aside 
nor  varied  from  in  any  'degree,  but  must  be  strictly  adhered  to  and 
acted  out  in  the  special  mode  of  every  application  of  the  law;  so 
that  real  public  justice  is  His  acting  as  Kuler  precisely  according  to  all 


4So  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

its  applications  to  His  subject  rational  creatures,  and  to  Himself  as 
related  to  them — especially  in  the  administration  of  retributions,  and 
more  especially  still  of  penal. 

§  269.    WHAT  MUST  BE  TRUE  OF  PUNISHMENT. 

Now,  in  view  of  all  this,  what  must  punishment  be  ?  Sinners 
have  done  direct  injustice  to  some  of  their  fellows,  and,  in  principle, 
to  all  intelligent  creatures;  and  they  owe  corresponding  penal  suffer- 
ing to  each  one,  both  of  the  few  and  of  all,  so  that  it  is  due  from 
them  to  each  and  all.  It  is  the  responsibility  of  God  to  each  and 
all,  as  Ruler,  to  inflict  it  upon  each  sinner  because  he  deserves  it  and 
it  is  owed  by  and  due  from  him  to  every  other  subject  of  God's  gov- 
ernment; because  inflicting  it  for  these  reasons  is  necessary  to  guard 
and  promote  the  reciprocal  love  and  all  the  good  dependent  on  it  of 
all  loyal  sufferers  of  his  wrong;  and  because  it  is  an  absolute  right 
of  each  of  these  sufferers  that  God  shall  inflict  it  upon  the  sinner, 
or  do  something  fully  equivalent,  in  order  to  secure  to  Him  and  all 
of  them  their  dite,  and  so  their  everlasting  good  and  glory.  Thus 
the  infliction  is  not  a  mere  act  of  rectoral  policy  for  impression  on 
the  loyal,  not  an  expression  of  anything,  but  a  real  exaction  from  the 
sinner  of  what  He  absolutely  owes  to  Himself  and  to  each  and  all 
of  the  loyal  subjects  of  God's  government  for  the  end  of  their  great- 
est possible  good.  It  is  a  real  and  perfect  public  justice,  because  it 
secures  the  whole  due  and  the  highest  possible  good  of  the  universal 
and  eternal  loyal  public.  Everything  which,  according  to  the  gov- 
ernmental theory,  the  infliction  is  designed  to  express  to  the  whole 
public,  is,  according  to  this,  which  we  believe  is  the  only  correct 
view,  actually  secured'  to  the  highest  possible  degree,  and  beyond 
that,  the  demand  of  real  justice,  both  as  ethical  and  as  retributive, 
is  perfectly  met  and  satisfied.  But  is  this  the  whole  justice  of  the 
case?  By  no  means.  For  all  the  injustice  of  the  sinner,  done 
directly  and  in  principle  against  any  and  all  in  the  universal  realm, 
was  also,  by  measureless  transcendence,  against  God  as  Ruler  of 
that  realm.  It  was  disobedience  to  Him,  disregard  and  defiance  of 
His  authority  and  rectoral  rights,  and  outrage  on  His  honor  as  sov- 
ereign; for  all  which  penal  suffering  is  deserved  by  and  due  from 
him  to  all  his  fellow  subjects  together.  All  sin  is  consummately 
against  Him;  and  what  can  be  more  false,  than  that  it  matters  not 
what  of  it  sinners  commit  against  Him,  no  penal  suffering  for  it  is 
deserved  by  them  and  due  to  Him — not  even  as  Ruler?  Is  not 
asserting  thi?  Uie  same  as  saying,  that  really  there  is  no  such  thing 


True  of  punishment.  4St 

as  sin  against  Him?  that  all  sin  is  such  only  when  committed  against 
fellow  creatures  ?  For,  against  whomsoever  it  is,  it  does  deserve 
punishment,  does  make  this  due  from  sinners  to  God  and  them,  or  the 
voice  of  imiversal  conscience  and  common  sense  is  a  delusion  and 
a  lie.  Yet,  if  punishment  is  made  a  mere  expression  to  God's  realm 
of  moral  beings,  and  not  the  exaction  of  a  due  of  retributive  justice 
from  sinners;  if  what  it  expresses  is  not  that  justice  demands  that 
they  shall  suffer  penally  as  they  deserve,  not  only  for  their  sins  against 
their  fellow  subjects,  but  transcendently  for  them  as  against  God, 
the  infinite  Ruler;  if  it  is  simply  to  show  how  He  esteems  His  enacted 
law  over  all  and  obedience  to  it,  how  He  abhors  sin  and  is  dis- 
pleased at  sinners,  and  His  determination  to  maintain  His  law,  gov- 
ernment, authority,  and  honor  as  Ruler  for  the  benefit  of  His  realm, 
then,  there  is  in  it  no  recognition  of  any  right  or  claim  of  God 
against  sinners  to  be  secured  by  it — of  any  penal  suffering  deserved 
by  them  or  due  from  them  to  Him  for  all  their  sins  against  Him, 
even  as  Ruler — or  of  any  principle  of  intrinsic  justice  whatever. 
And,  because  it  is  not  demanded  by  such  a  principle,  inherent  in 
God,  and  all  other  moral  natures,  it  is  merely  a  thing  of  Divine  will 
and  institution,  of  device  or  invention  in  order  to  a  devised  or  in- 
vented government,  and  therefore  purely  arbitrary  in  the  sense  of 
being  simply  a  thing  of  will.  As  its  end  is  the  benefit  of  the  great 
public,  for  which  it  is  invented,  it  is  not  for  God  at  all,  even  as  self- 
constituted  Ruler,  otherwise  than  as  it  is  an  instrument  essential  to 
His  governing.  But,  even  this  is  not  the  whole  case;  for  God  is  not 
only  the  universal  Ruler,  but  a  moral  Being,  a  Person,  having  all  the 
rights,  claims,  and  susceptibilities  of  one,  and  having,  as  one,  the 
eternal,  uncreated  law  inherent  in  His  nature,  with  its  matter  of 
love,  its  quality  of  justice,  and  its  end  of  well-being,  by  which  He 
is  a  social-xs\ox2X  Being,  and  in  the  universal  and  eternal  moral 
society  and  system.  He  is  the  Creator  of  all  that  exists  besides 
Himself — of  all  matter  and  all  irrational  creatures  for  the  sake  of 
the  rational;  and  He  created  all  with  reference  to  that  society  and 
system.  He  constituted  rational  creatures  with  the  law  in  them 
which  is  in  Himself,  that  they  might  be  moral  and  of  course  social 
beings  like  Himself,  and  thus  capable  of  being  like  Him  in  charac- 
ter, of  loving  Him  and  being  morally  loved  by  Him,  of  intimate 
fellowship  and  communion  with  Him,  of  being  happy  and  blessed 
in  union  and  communion  with  Him  and  of  being  objects  of  His 
eternal  complacency.  The  justice  of  the  law  demands  that  they 
should  love  Him  supremely,  rendering  Him  all  reverence,  homage, 


482  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  OM  THE  ATONEMENT. 

honor,  gratitude,  and  obedience  perfectly  and  perpetually  as  due  to 
Him  by  absolute  right  and  claim.  He  is  also  their  constant  Pre- 
server and  Benefactor;  and  for  being  such  they  owe  Him  all  possible 
gratitude  and  devotion.  All  this  He  deserves,  and  it  is  abso- 
lutely due  to  Him  from  them  by  the  justice  of  the  law.  How  do 
they  regard  and  treat  Him  personally  in  return  ?  They  render  Him 
nothing  of  all  they  owe  Him,  but  rob  Him  of  all  love,  gratitude, 
reverence,  homage,  and  honor.  They  disregard  His  rights,  deny 
His  claims,  decline  and  spurn  society  with  Him,  turn  away  from 
and  treat  Him  as  an  enemy,  and  are  rebels  and  enemies  in  heart 
against  Him,  not  even  liking  to  retain  Him  in  their  knowlege,  car- 
ing nothing  for  His  feelings,  interests,  and  ends,  and  steadily  oppos- 
ing them.  They  are  His  enemies  precisely  for  the  reasons  for  which 
they  ought  to  love  Him,  and  their  enmity  against  Him  is  the  strong- 
est ever  entrenched  in  creature  hearts,  the  most  unreasonable  and 
invincible.  It  is  partly  because  as  their  Ruler  He  claims  and  com- 
mands their  obedience,  partly  because  of  the  holy  perfection  of  His 
character,  and  partly  because  He  declares  that  He  will  punish  them 
according  to  the  desert  of  their  sins.  Now,  do  they  deserve  no  pun- 
ishment from  Him  for  all  this  flagitious  attitude,  spirit,  and  action 
against  Him  as  a  Person,  their  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Benefactor? 
Is  no  penal  suffering  due  to  Him  Personally  for  their  injustice  and 
wrong  against  Him  as  a  Person,  additional  to  what  is  due  to  Him  as 
Ruler  and  to  His  universal  realm  ?  Is  He  the  only  being  in  the 
universe  against  whom  sin  goes  for  nothing?  No;  exactly  accord- 
ing to  all  this,  sin  against  Him  is  the  measure  of  the  punishment 
they  deserve  for  it,  and  of  the  suffering  by  it  due  to  Him  from  them; 
and,  if  Christ  has  not  suffered  it  in  their  stead,  they  must  suffer  it 
themselves  in  addition  to  that  due  to  Him  as  Ruler  and  to  Plis 
whole  loyal  realm.  Evidently  then,  no  mere  governmental  theory 
at  all  meets  the  case.  As  God  rules  all,  not  for  their  sake  only,  but 
for  His  own,  so  He  rewards  and  punishes,  rtot  only  or  mainly  for 
the  sake  of  His  creatures  as  subjects  or  as  creatures,  but  transcend- 
cntly  for  His  own. 

§  270.    WHAT  THE  SCRIPTURES  TEACH  RESPECTING   GOD's  REASON  FOR, 
AND  END  IN  PUNISHMENT? 

Do  the  Scriptures  teach  what  we  have  thus  stated  as  to  God's 
reason  for,  and  end  in  punishment?  We  are  sure  they  do  not  teach 
the  mere  governmental  theory.  It  is  truly  remarkable  how  compar- 
atively little  is  said  in  them  of  sin  as  against  men  or  any  creature. 


COD'S  REASON  FOR  PUNISHMENT.  483 

and  how  much  is  said  of  it  as  against  God,  and  no  less  so,  how 
uniformly  pimishment  is  threatened  and  declared  to  be  strictly 
retributive — to  every  one  according  to  His  works — never  to  be  an 
expression  to  created  moral  beings  of  anything.  Let  every  one  turn 
to  the  word  sin,  noun,  or  verb,  in  Crnden's,  or  any  other  full  Con- 
cordance, and  go  through  all  the  passages  in  which  it  occurs,  and 
he  will  see  that  wherever  it  is  used  in  a  general  way,  and  even  when 
it  is  mentioned  as  committed  in  injuring  man,  it  is  always  against 
God,  and  not  merely  against  His  law,  government,  or  subjects.  The 
same  is  true  of  other  words  meaning  essentially  the  same  — 
iniquity,  wickedness,  ungodliness,  transgression,  disobedience,  and 
others;  and  it  is  implied  in  the  requirement  of  repentance  towards 
God,  and  in  the  fact  that  He  alone  can  forgive  sins.  As  to  punish- 
ment, the  fundamental  principle  of  its  infliction  by  God  set  forth  in 
all  the  Scriptures  is  that  it  will  be  always  exactly  retributive,  or 
according  to  the  deeds  or  deserts  of  sinners.*  We  have  referred  to 
this  long  array  of  passages,  to  which  many  more  might  be  added,  to 
show  how  uniformly,  unequivocally,  and  fundamentally  Scripture 
teaches  the  doctrine  of  exact  retributive  punitive  justice — ^that  pun- 
ishment will  never  be  inflicted  by  any  other  rule  than  that  of  the 
actual  guilt  or  ill- desert  of  sinners.  There  is  not  a  hint  in  all  these 
or  any  other  passages,  that  it  will  be  for  any  other  direct  purpose 
than  to  meet  and  satisfy  the  demand  of  God's  wrath  {opy?/)  against 
them.  We  have  shown  that  His  wrath  is  no  mere  emotion  or  pas- 
sion, but  the  demand  of  His  retributive  justice  against  them;  and  it 
is  not  at  all  adequately  nor  correctly  expressed  by  the  commonly 
substituted  weak,  effeminate  word,  displeasure,  which  tends  to  keep 
up  the  erroneous  and  perverting  notion  that  it  is  simply  emotional  or 
passional.  It  would  be  utterly  dishonoring  to  Him  and  inconsist- 
ent with  His  infinite  holiness  and  perfection  of  character  to  make 
this  the  determining  cause  of  His  will  to  punish  sinners;  for  this, 
from  its  very  nature,  He  could  suppress  or  modify,  if  He  chose. 
That  cause,  therefore,  can  be  nothing  else  radically  than  the  demand 

(*)  See  Job  34:11;  Ps.  28:4;  62:12;  Is.  3:10,  li;  Jer.  17:10;  32:19;  Mat.  16:27: 
I\oni.  i:i8;  2:5-12;  14:11,  12;  II.  Cor.  5:10;  Gal.  6:7;  Col.  3:25;  Rev.  2:23;  20:12; 
22:12.  .See  uiuler  noun  recoinpence,  and  verb,  recompense,  Deut.  32:35;  11.  Cnron. 
6:23;  Ps.  94:1;  Prov.  12:14;  ^^-  59:18;  3:11;  65:6,  7;  Jer.  25:14;  50:29;  Lam.  3:64; 
Ez.  7:3,  4;  9:10;  ii:2i;  16:43;  22:31;  Hos.  12:2;  Joel  3:4,  7;  Heb.  2:2;  10:30. 
See  under  reward,  noun  and  verb,  II.  Sam.  3;39;  Hos.  4:9;  Mat.  16:27;  II.  Tim. 
4:14;  Rev.  18:6.  See  under  repay,  Deut.  7:10;  Job  21:30,31;  Is.  59:18;  Rom. 
12:19.  Sss  under /!?/;»>//■,  Jer.  21:14;  Hos.  4:9;  12:2;  Amos  3:2;  II.  Thess.  1:6-9; 
Heb.  10:28,  29.  See  under  reiuler.  Job  34:11;  II.  Chron.  6:30;  Prov.  24:12;  Ps. 
28:4.  See  under  veiii^eaiice,  Deut.  3,2:35,  41,  43;  Rom.  3:5;  12:19;  II.  THiess.  1:8; 
Jude  7. 


4.S4  SCRIPTURAL  TEACniMGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

which  we  have  mentioned,  which  is  just  as  absolute  as  that  of  His 
ethical  justice,  ox  as  His  holiness  and  benevolence,  to  which  it  is 
eternally  essential.  That  inflicting  punishment  to  meet  this  demand 
will  produce  governmental  effects  for  God's  whole  realm  forever  is 
certain,  as,  from  the  social-moral  nature  of  all  in  that  realm,  and  the 
fact  that  all  the  recipients  of  the  infliction  are  His  subjects  in  it,  it 
could  not  be  otherwise;  and  that  He  will  not  inflict  it  to  meet  this 
demand  merely  for  the  sake  of  meeting  it,  but  as  the  necessary  fun- 
damental means  of  securing  the  end  of  the  law,  which  is  the  highest 
possible  good  and  glory  to  Himself  and  endless  well-being  in  that 
realm,  belongs  also  to  the  nature  of  the  case  from  the  nature  of  the 
law.  His  design,  therefore,  is  and  will  be  to  inflict  it  as  strictly  retrib- 
utive, strictly  according  to  the  measure  of  the  actual  ill-desert  of 
its  objects,  as  He  sees  it,  strictly  to  meet  and  satisfy  the  demand  of 
justice  in  Himself  and  all  other  moral  natures  and  in  the  law  from 
them,  for  the  consummate  end  of  that  law.  That  end  is  partly  in 
his  subjects,  but  incomparably  more  in  Himself,  not  only  as  an  abso- 
lutely just  Ruler,  but  as  a  moral  Being,  a  Person,  who,  aside  from 
being  a  Ruler,  is  their  Creator,  Preserver,  and  supreme  Benefactor. 
It  is  not  in  the  least  against  this,  if  men  cannot  notv  fully  compre- 
hend it;  for  the  day  of  judgment  is  "the  day  of  wrath  and  revela- 
tion of  the  righteous  judgment  of  God,"  and  then  and  ever  after  it 
will  be  comprehended  by  the  whole  realm  of  intelligent  creatures. 
The  principle  of  it  they  all  do  see,  comprehend,  and  assert  in  rela- 
tion to  those  who  wrong  them  or  others,  when  they  are  unper- 
verted  by  any  selfish  interest,  or  any  conflicting,  assumed  theory, 
ethical  or  theological,  which  they  have  fixed  upon  concerning  it. 

§  271.    EASY  TO  SEE,  THEN,  WHAT  AN  ATONEMENT  MUST  BE. 

Now,  if  the  foregoing  is  correct,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  an  atone- 
ment must  be.  Christ,  as  the  representative  and  substitute  of  man- 
kind, must  bear  or  endure  in  their  stead,  to  an  equivalent  degree,  the 
infliction  of  suffering  and  death  which  they  deserve,  so  as  perfectly  to 
meet  the  demand  of  retributive  penal  justice  against  them.  The 
immediate  end  of  His  endurance  must  be  precisely  the  same  as  that 
of  theirs,  in  order  that  its  effects  in  and  upon  God,  and  those  of  the 
knowledge  of  it  in  and  upon  the  whole  realm  of  intelligent  creatures 
may  be  the  same  as  those  of  their  punitive  sufferings  would  be;  and 
that  end  is  a  full  meeting  and  satisfying  the  demand  of  retributive, 
penal  justice  against  them,  provisionally  for  them  all,  actually  for 
all  of  them  who  will  receive  it,  pre-eminently  as  that  demand  is  in 


WHAT  AN  ATONEMENT  MUST  BE.    ,  485 

God,  and  subordinately  as  it  is  in  all  created  moral  beings;  so  that 
He  and  they  will  forever  concur  in  saying,  that  "justice  is  absolutely 
maintained  firm,"  even  if  He  should  forgive  the  sins  of  the  whole  of 
them  on  the  necessary  ethical  conditions.  In  no  other  way,  can  His 
sufferings  be  a  substitute  for  those  of  their  punishment;  for,  if  His 
were  a  mere  expression  of  the  cluster  of  ends  presented  in  the  gov- 
ernmental theory  to  God's  realm  of  rational  creatures,  by  what  pos- 
sibility could  they  be  a  substitution  for  those  deserved  by  sinners  and 
due  from  them  to  Him  and  that  realm  ?  It  matters  not  that  the 
expression  was  made  by  a  Divine  and  awfully  tragic  catastrophe, 
that  catastrophe  was  not  designed  to  be  a  substitution,  in  any  sense 
of  that  word,  for  the  penal  sufferings  of  sinners,  but  to  be  simply  a 
mode  of  objeet-teaching,  by  which  God  symbolically  shows  or  repre- 
sents to  His  subjects  that  cluster  of  ends.  Substitution  is  possible 
only  if  there  is  a  demand  of  retributive  punitive  justice  against  sin- 
ners that  they  must  suffer  as  they  deserve  for  the  ethical  injustice 
which  they  have  done  against  God  and  His  realm.  Their  suffering 
is  the  correlative  of  the  love  of  which  they  have  robbed  Him  and 
His  realm,  and  must  balance  it.  This  balancing  suffering  is  not  due 
to  the  law,  the  government,  nor  the  authority  of  God,  nor  to  His 
wisdom  and  holiness  embodied  in  these,  nor  to  anything  outside  of 
Himself  and  other  holy  moral  beings,  as  Persons,  because  no  injus- 
tice can  be  done  to,  or  suffered  by  anything  else  than  moral  beings. 
Nor  is  it  due  to  the  great  community  of  God's  realip,  as  what  is 
called  public  justice,  because  nothing  is  due  to  the  whole,  except  as 
it  is  to  its  several  constituents;  and  if  the  penal  suffering  of  sinners 
is  not  due  to  these  severally,  as  the  retributive  equivalent  of  the 
ethical  injustice  suffered  by  each  from  them,  for  what  is  it  due? 
That  is,  if  retributive  justice  is  not  the  basis  and  principle  of  all  real 
public  Justice,  what  other  basis  and  principle  can  it  have  ?  and  how 
can  there  be  any  such  thing?  If  punishment  is  not  inflicted  because 
sinners  deserve  it,  and  their  endurance  of  it  is  due  to  God,  and  sub- 
ordinately to  the  several  constituents  of  the  realm,  and  so  to  the 
organic  whole,  it  is  merely  protective  of,  or  for  the  good  of,  those  con- 
stituents; and  why  not,  then,  if  that  good  might  be  advanced  by 
inflicting  the  same  suffering  on  obedient  subjects,  discard  the  whole 
voice  of  conscience  and  demand  of  justice  in  that  realm  by  inflict- 
ing it  on  them,  and  by  even  treating  the  wicked  in  the  way  which 
would  be  the  proper  reward  of  the  righteous?  If  retributive  justice 
be  denied,  there  can  certainly  be  no  such  thing  as  desert  of  either 
punishment  or  reward,   and,   instead  of   these  being  founded  in  the 


4S6  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

nature  and  relations  of  God  and  other  moral  beings,  the}'  are  purely 
arbitrary,  and  not  justice  at  all.  It  therefore  seems  to  us  certain, 
that  Christ  made  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  by  sub- 
stituting Himself  to  God  for  all  its  constituents  that  His  sufferings 
and  death  might  be  instead  of  the  penal  sufferings  and  death  which 
they  severally  deserved  and  must  otherwise  endure.  And,  as  theirs 
must  be  to  meet  and  satisfy  the  demand  of  retributive  justice  in  and 
from  the  nature  of  God  and  of  all  other  holy  moral  beings,  strictly 
according  to  their  actual  ill-desert  as  God  sees  it,  so  those  of  Christ 
in  their  place  must  be  to  meet  the  same  demand  provisionally  for 
them  all,  to  rescue  them  from  the  necessity  of  meeting  it  themselves, 
and  actually  for  all  of  them  who,  during  their  probation,  will  fulfill 
the  necessary  ethical  conditions.  He  deserved  none  of  them;  nor 
did  He  assume  the  ill-desert  of  sinners  to  the  least  degree;  but, 
moved  by  His  infinite  merciful  love  for  them  as  moral  natures.  He 
voluntarily  assumed  to  endure  their  deserved  penal  sufferings  and 
death,  not  as  punishment  to  Him  of  course,  but  as  theirs,  to  save 
them  from  the  necessity  of  enduring  it,  and  from  actually  enduring  it, 
if  they  truly  return  to  God.  In  doing  this.  He  perfectly  fulfilled  the 
matter  of  the  law,  which  is  moral  love,  and  thus  did  all  possible  for 
its  end,  which  is  the  highest  possible  pleasure  and  glory  of  God  and 
good  of  all  His  loyal  subjects;  and  so  its  justice,  which  is  the  basis 
and  bulwark  of  the  love  and  greatest  possible  good  of  God  and  all 
His  loyal  society.  We  thus  see  clearly  how  it  secured  the  true  ends 
of  public  justice  and  vastly  more — how  its  immediate  effect  was  in 
and  upon  God  Himself,  and  its  consequential  effects  were  in  ana 
upon  His  rational  creatures — how  it  reconciled  Him  to  the  world  of 
sinners,  and  opened  the  way  for  Him  to  do  all  possible  to  have  it 
made  known  to  and  effective  on  them  to  reconcile  them  all  to  Him — 
how  it  was  an  expiatioi  and  propitiation  (^DMCfiuq')  to  God,  not  to  the 
realm  of  creatures,  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world — how,  therefore, 
God  can  htjust  and  i\\e  Justifier  of  all  who  believe  in  Jesus — how  it 
is  the  B.\\-s\i^c\tnt  foundation,  besides  which  none  can  lay  any  other, 
for  the  remission  or  forgiveness  of  sins  through  faith  in  Christ's 
name — and  how,  as  well  as  why,  "  it  pleased  God  in  Him,  having 
made  peace  through  the  blood  of  His  cross,  by  Him  to  reconcile 
all  things  to  Himself;  by  Him,  I  say,  whether  things  on  earth  or 
things  in  heaven"  (Col.  1:20).  It  provisionally  met  the  demand  of 
justice  against  human  sinners  in  God  and  in  all  holy  beings  in  all 
worlds  and  forever;  and  actually  meets  it  against  all  who  will  believe 
through  all  time.     "All  that  was  contrary  to  us,  God  took  out  of  the 


WHAT  AN  ATONEMENT  MUST  BE.  48; 

way,  nailing  it  to  the  cross,  and  having  spoiled  principalities  and 
powers,  He  made  a  show  of  them  openly,  triumphing  over  them 
in  it." 

That  Christ's  sufferings  and  death  were  purely  substitutional, 
by  the  design  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  for  the  penal  sufferings 
deserved  by  sinners  and  due  from  them  to  God  and  His  whole  realm, 
is  demonstrated  by  the  whole  array  of  Scripture  passages  which  we 
have  examined  in  the  preceding  pages  relating  to  them;  and  we  add 
nothing  here  to  their  invincible  testimony.  That  they  were  to  meet 
the  demand  of  retributive  penal  justice  is  not  only  also  clearly 
taught,  but  is,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  intrinsic  in  substitution. 
That  Christ  endured  the  infliction  of  the  essential  penal  sufferings 
deserved  by  sinners  in  their  stead,  is  in  its  nature  substitution.  "He 
was  made  a  curse  [one  devoted  to  all  He  suffered]  for  us,"  and 
"sin  [a  sin-offering],  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of 
God  in  Him" — that  is  justified. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Scripttiral  Doctrine  of  Forgiveness  and  Justification. 

§  272.    WHY   GOD    CANNOT    FORGIVE    ANY    SINNER    INDEPE';^DENTLY   OF 
THE  ATONEMENT. 

God  and  all  created  moral  beings  are  such  because  the  nature 
of  each  contains  and  enjoins  upon  itself  the  law,  and  thus  by  nature 
they  are  in  and  constitute  one  universal,  eternal  social-moral  society, 
of  which,  by  the  nature  of  the  case.  He  is  Head,  the  Ruler  or  Ad- 
ministrator of  that  law,  which,  by  its  quality  of  justice,  revributive 
just  because  it  is  ethical,  is  the  sole  compacting  bond  of  that  society, 
and  constitutes  a  universal  moral  system.  It  is  therefore  a  prepos- 
terous conceit,  that  God  can,  by  any  moral  possibility,  do  the  abso- 
lutely anti-natural,  anti-moral,  anti-social,  anti-systemic,  anti-just, 
ethically  or  retributively,  anti-benevolent,  anti-governing,  anti- 
accountable,  arbitrary,  reasonless  act  of  pardoning,  forgiving,  remit- 
ting the  sins  of  a  single  sinner,  even  should  he  repent,  which  none 
ever  would  do,  on  any  ground  whatever,  except  that  of  an  atone- 
ment, which  perfectly  meets  for  him  the  demand  of  ethical  justice 
to  God  and  the  whole  loyal  society  by  meeting  that  of  retributive 
justice  against  him.  Were  this  conceit  true,  God  could  not  have 
even  a  parody  of  a  government,  but  would  be  a  consummate  non- 
resista7it  to  sinners,  never  inflicting  punishment  upon  them,  even  if 
peers  or,  if  possible,  worse,  of  Herod,  miscalled  the  Great,  of  Nero, 
of  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  of  his  son,  Caesar  Borgia,  of  Philip  II.,  of 
Spain,  of  the  Duke  of  Alva,  and  the  myriads  of  both  sexes  of  like 
kind  along  down  the  centuries;  but,  leaving  them  wholly  to  the  mere 
natural  consequences  of  their  sins,  absurdly  called  retributions  and 
punishment,  for  penalty.  He,  according  to  Bushnell,  must  persist- 
ently enter  into  sympathy  with  them  in  undergoing  these  conse- 
quences and  go  to  cost  for  them  in  order  to  propitiate  Himself  to 


FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS.  489 

them  !  *  The  whole  conception  of  God's  designing  and  adopting 
such  a  factitious  method  of  propitiating  Himself  towards  sinners, 
we  boldly  repel  as  unethical,  repulsive,  and  even  ridiculous,  espe- 
cially when  connected  with  the  denial  that  He  was  under  any  neces- 
sity of  justice,  law,  government,  or  moral  system  to  inflict  any 
punishment  whatever  on  all  or  any  of  them,  even  the  worst,  the 
natural  consequences  of  their  sins  being  all  they  ever  would  suffer  in 
any  event,  and  these  being  incapable  of  arrest  or  abatement  by  any 
self-propitiation  of  His.  According  to  this  notion,  instead  of  His 
wrath  ('V'}'})  against  sinners  being  the  demand  in  Him,  as  Ruler,  oi 
the  law  or  its  justice  for  their  punishment  for  violating  it,  it  is  sim- 
ply an  ebulliency  of  passion  or  emotional  anger  in  Him  as  a  mere 
Person;  and  to  cool  this  off,  and  propitiate  Himself  into  sympathetic 
and  kind  feeling  or  good-humor  towards  them.  He  devises  and 
practices  upon  Himself  this  farcical  method  of  self-imposture! 
Think  only  of  an  omniscient  Being  as  in  reality  either  in  such  an 
emotional  passion  or  trying  to  trick  Himself  out  of  it  into  sober 
reason,  judgment  and  benevolence  respecting  them  by  such  a  pre- 
posterous process  of  self-deception  !  Think  how  this  notion  ol 
propitiation  in  its  setting  must  appear  to  the  omniscient  One;  Him- 
self ! 

§  273.    FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS  NOT  A  PERSONAL  MATTER  TO  (iOD. 

In  the  Work  of  Bushnell,  last  referred  to,f  we  find  the  follow- 
ing: "  The  forgiveness  of  sins,  *  *  *  is  a  purely  personal  mat- 
ter, in  which  the  Fatherhood  love  and  feeling  and  the  offended  holi- 
ness of  God  are  concerned.  The  proceeding  here  is  intelligible  and 
simple,  because  the  forgiveness  in  question  is  to  be  a  strictly  Per- 
sonal Settlement,  that  and  that  only.  ''^  *  *  All  wrongs,  taken  as 
personal  offenses,  are  yet  violations  also  of  law,  and  forgiveness,  being 
personal,  has  no  power,  of  course,  to  right  the  injuries  of  broken  law. 
The  law,  too,  being  impersonal,  cannot,  of  course,  forgive  anything 
itself;  or  any  way  compound  its  own  wrong;  neither  is  it  conceiv- 
able that  God,  as  administrator  of  law,  has  any  i)Ower  to  annul  the 
fact  of  such  wrong,  or  the  fact  of  a  damage  done  by  it  to  the  law. 
Forgiveness,  we  thus  find,  puts  a  man  personally  right  with  God, 
but  it  does  not  put  him  right  with  law,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  that 
anything  can.  The  retributive  consequences  of  violated  law  are 
running  still  in  his  nature;   only  so  far  reduced   as   the  moral  dis- 


(*)  Forgiveness  and  Law,  Cliap.  I. 

(f)  Forgiveness  and  Law,  Clian.  11.,  pp.  93,  94. 


49C  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

orders  of  his  nature  are  rectified,  and  the  blight  of  his  transgressions 
removed  by  the  health-restoring  efficacy  of  the  regeneration.  Made 
partly  or  completely  whole,  he  will  be  partly  or  completely  clear  of 
the  penal  effects  of  the  law,  and  never  till  then.  At  this  single 
point  and  so  far,  forgiveness  has  to  do  with  law,  and  law  with  for- 
giveness, and  I  really  do  not  see  that  they  have  a  single  point  of 
contact  anywhere  else;  except  as  the  law  continues  to  press  the 
enforcement  of  a  life  that  can  fitly  be  forgiven." 

This  passage  is  a  medley  of  inherent  inconsistencies,  all  at  war 
with  the  correlation  of  evangelical  tenets  it  is  aimed  to  supplant; 
but  our  special  reason  for  quoting  it  is  its  statement  in  the  first  two 
sentences,  that  "  the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  a  purely  personal  matter," 
"  a  strictly  Personal  Settlement,  that  and  that  only."  This  notion, 
with  its  grounds  and  implications,  we  have,  for  all  the  reasons  shown, 
called  a  preposterous  conceit.  For  those  reasons,  and  those  shown 
in  Part  I.  of  this  Work,  we  have  denied  that,  if  God  acts  according 
to  the  law  and  moral  system.  He  can  have  a  right  to  forgive  or  to 
remit  the  sins  of  any  sinner,  even  if  repentant,  ivhicJi  none  ever  would 
be,  as  a  merely  Personal  act,  or  except  as  a  Ruler,  for  the  following 
reasons:  i.  Sin  is  not  merely  a  personal  matter  between  them,  but 
one  between  every  sinner  and  the  total  moral  society,  God  as  its 
Head  and  Ruler  included.  Were  the  two  the  only  ones  existing,  it 
seems  possible  that  God  might  then  forgive  him,  if  truly  repentant, 
as  His  so  doing  would  be  a  simply  personal  matter,  provided  others 
were  never  to  exist,  or  to  know  the  fact,  if  they  should.  But  the 
existence  of  a  single  one  more  would  radically  change  the  case.  By 
every  principle  of  their  social-moral  nature,  the  law  in  it,  and  the 
moral  system  which  these  would  create,  He  would  be  bound  to  be 
their  Ruler,  and,  as  the  Administrator  of  that  law  and  system,  and 
especially  if  He  designed  ever  to  increase  their  number,  and  that 
those  added  should  ever  know  what  He  had  done,  if  one  of  the  two 
should  sin,  to  do  ethical  justice  to  Himself  and  the  other  by  inflict- 
ing retributive  i)unishment  on  him  according  to  his  actual  ill-desert, 
as  known  by  Him.  ^Ve  mean,  of  course,  if  a  redemptive  measure 
with  its  involved  gracious  probation  were  not  provided  for  him.  If 
one  were  provided,  and  he  refused  to  embrace  it,  he  would  deserve 
and  God  would  inflict  a  proportionately  severer  punishment  upon 
him  when  his  probation  closed.  If  they  should  both  sin,  the  same  prin- 
ciples and  conditions  would  apply  to  both,  as  if  only  one  did,  except 
that,  if  God  did  not  design  to  create  others,  nor  interpose  a  redemptive 
measure,  there  would  seem  to  be  no  end  to  be  attained  by  inflicting 


FORGIVENESS  OF  SINS.  .491 

deserved  punishment  upon  them  beyond  abandoning  them  forever. 
But,  if  He  designed  to  create  others,  and  that  they  should  know  His 
course  with  these  two,  then  they  would  really  be  in  a  moral  society 
and  system,  and  must  be  dealt  with  accordingly,  and  if  He  had  no 
redemptive  measure  for  them.  He  must  punish  them  precisely  as 
they  desqrve;  or,  if  having  such  a  measure,  they  do  not  embrace  it, 
He  must  punish  them  proportionately  more  severely  at  the  close  ot 
their  probation.  His  obligation  to  do  such  justice  must  increase  in 
proportion  to  every  increase  of  the  number  embraced  at  any  suc- 
cessive point  in  the  universal  and  eternal  society  and  system.  By 
creating  them,  however  many,  he  constituted  them  into  this  moral 
society  and  system  with  Himself  in,  over,  and  forever  responsible  to 
all  loyally  in  them  to  maintain  them  by  administering  the  law  in 
perfect  accordance  with  its  social-moral  character,  which  consists 
in  its  requiring  pure  moral  love  to  Him  and  to  all  the  ever-obedient 
as  ethical  justice  to  Him  and  them,  which  includes  punitive  retribu- 
tive justice  to  all  in  sin  at  the  end  of  their  probation.  Civil  justice 
in  a  state  to  law-keeping  citizens  includes  retributive  justice  to  wrong- 
doers and  criminals.  With  these  invincible  truths  before  us,  how 
can  it  possibly  consist  with  them  or  be  true,  that  "  forgiveness  is 
purely  "  or  at  all,  "a  personal  matter,"  "a  strictly  Personal  Settle- 
ment?" 2.  It  certainly  cannot  as  it  respects  either  God  or  any 
sinner,  (i)  As  to  (lod,  in  forgiving  a  sinner,  He  is  doing  an  a':t 
which  necessarily  pertains  to  a  Ruler  only.  Neither  does  He  stand 
related  to  a  sinner,  nor  a  sinner  to  Him,  as  merely  private.  He  is 
not  only  the  Author  and  fundamental  member  of  the  universal  and 
eternal  society,  but,  by  infinite  obligation.  He  is  its  Ruler,  having 
made  it  by  creating  every  one  in  it  with  His  law  in  him,  and  with 
conscience  to  uphold  it  by  its  judicial  decisions;  and  therefore  He 
cannot  act  as  a  mere  private  member  of  it,  irresponsible  to  it  all, 
with  any  one,  especially  any  sinner  of  it,  in  any  matter  whatever 
which  involves  or  affects  in  any  way  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and 
concerns  of  all  or  any  in  it.  For,  as  its  Ruler,  He  necessarily  rep- 
resents all  and  each  ///  //,  as  well  as  Ifimsel/\n  all  such  action;  anil 
forgiving  sins  or  sinners  is  just  such.  For  sin  is  violation  of  the 
law,  of  the  moral  system  it  constitutes,  of  the  universal  moral  gov- 
ernment, of  the  moral  nature  of  God  and  all  other  moral  beings, 
and  therefore  of  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  all  the 
society,  and  thus,  in  principle,  of  ethical  justice  throughout  its  en- 
tire and  eternal  extent;  and  the  demand  of  ethical  justice  from  God 
to  the  society,  including  Himself,  is  for  retributive  jusliceupon  every 


492  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

sinner.  Hence,  it  cannot  possibly  be  a  private,  but  must  necessar- 
ily be  an  official,  public  act  of  God  as  Ruler  to  forgive  any  sinner. 
Rulers  can  only  pardon  or  forgive  violators  of  law  which  is  public 
action;  and  they  can  never  do  it  righteously  as  a  mere  personal  matter 
or  settlement,  which  it  never  can  be,  but  only  in  harmony  with  the 
general  rights  and  good,  which  is  supremely  true  of  God.  (2)  As 
to  sinners,  as  forgiving'  is  replacing  them,  freed  from  liability  to 
deserved,  retributive  punishment  from  God  as  Ruler,  and  with  per- 
fect title  in  the  universal  society,  all  whose  rights,  dues,  interests, 
and  concerns,  God's  as  Ruler  and  also  as  a  Person  included,  they 
have  violated,  by  what  possibility  can  it  be  a  mere  personal  matter 
in  the  case  of  each  of  them,  or  not  an  act  which  necessarily  and 
most  profoundly  concerns  the  total  moral  society  and  system 
throughout  the  universe  and  the  everlasting  ages?  For,  if  God's 
act  of  forgiving  one  is  purely  a  personal  matter  or  settlement  with 
him,  it  is  not  one  done  by  Him  as  Ruler  at  all,  nor  one  to  its  object 
as  necessarily  in  and  accountable  to  that  society  represented  by 
Him  as  its  Ruler,  but  one  which,  in  the  relations  of  both  to  that 
society,  He  can  have  no  possible  right  to  do,  as  it  would  be  in 
direct  conflict  with  His  law,  as  it  is  in  His  own  and  all  created  moral 
natures,  with  the  universal  moral  system  it  constitutes,  with  His 
Rulership  or  moral  government,  and  so  with  all  justice  and  all  well- 
being.  It  would  be  sheer  injustice  to  each  one  in  that  society, 
Himself  included,  since,  by  thus  exempting  him,  without  any  repar- 
ation whatever  or  regard  to  it,  as  must  be  done  if  forgiving  him  is 
purely  a  personal  matter,  from  retributive  justice,  merely  on  condi- 
tion of  repentance,  He  would  refuse  to  do  ethical  justice  to  all  in  it; 
and  thus,  discardifig  all  administrative  justice,  He  would  reduce 
His  law  to  mere  advice,  annul  His  government,  disintegrate  the  uni- 
versal moral  society  and  system,  replace  all  His  governmental 
administration  with  everlasting,  anti-moral  non-resistance  to  sinners 
however  enormously  criminal,  and  wage  irreconcilable  war  with  all 
the  intuitions  and  affirmations  of  moral  reason  and  conscience  in  all 
moral  natures  existing  and  to  exist  in  all  futurity.  To  express  the 
whole  in  brief,  as  God  and  the  sinner  are  both  in  the  universal 
society  and  system,  and  He  is  its  Ruler,  representing  it  all  in  for- 
giving sinners,  simply  because  that  is  a  social-moral  act — one  which 
concerns  the  society  because  it  replaces  them  in  it,  restored  to  all 
the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  which,  by  their  sins  against 
His  law  and  government  over  it,  and  so  against  Himself  as  Ruler, 
they  had  forfeitedj  and  had  thus   made  their  forgiveness  necessary. 


IVIIAl  FORGIVEyESS  IS,  AS  TAUGHT  LV  SCIUPTURE.      493 

what  an  elephantine  absurdity  it  is  to  sav  that  "forgiveness  is  a 
purely  personal  matter,"  "  a  strictly  Personal  Settlement,  that  and 
that  only?"  But  this  absurdity  is  the  logical  offspring  of  one  even 
larger,  if  possible,  the  one  that  the  natural  consequences  of  moral 
action  are  its  retributions.  In  Chapters  III.  and  IV.,  Part  I.,  of  this 
Work,  we  have  not  only  shown  the  superficial,  mechanical  and  ground- 
less character  of  this  notion,  but  its  direct  antagonism  to  both  moral 
psychology  and  Scripture,  to  the  law  and  the  universal  social-moral 
society  and  system  constituted  by  it,  or  by  moral  reason  which  gives, 
and  conscience  which  ujjholds,  it,  and  of  course  to  all  justice, 
Christianity  and  the  true  character  of  God.  It  is  the  prolific  dam 
of  other  absurdities,  of  which  one  is,  that  God  can  forgive  sins  or 
sinners  at  all,  if  this  notion  is  true. 

§  274.    WHAT  FORGIVENESS  IS,  AS  TAUGHT  IN  SCRIPTURE. 

In  all  our  Lord's  sayings  recorded  in  the  GosjDcl,  He  never,  but 
once,  uses  any  other  Greek  verb  than  aobjuL  which  means  to  dismiss; 
to  let  go  from  one's  power,  so  from  obligation  to  one's  self;  to  remit 
a  debt,  offense,  or  the  like;  then,  to  remit  sin  or  sins,  transgressions, 
etc.,  that  is,  tlieir  penalty  or pnnisluncnt;  which,  as  all  capable  inter- 
preters agree,  is,  to  pardon,  to  forgive  sins  or  sinners;  nor  did  He 
ever  use  any  other  noun  than  atpicjcQ,  which  means  dismission,  that 
is,  deliverance,  etc.,  from  service,  captivity,  etc.;  hence,  remission, 
that  is,  pardon,  forgiveness  of  sins.  His  Apostles,  Peter  (Acts  2:38; 
5:31;  8:22;  10:43),  James  (5:15),  and  John  (I.  John  1:9;  2:12),  use 
the  same  verb  and  noun  only  to  express  the  same  meanings.  Paid 
uses  this  same  noun  oiily  to  express  this  same  meaning  (Acts  13:38; 
26:18;  Eph.  1:7;  Col.  1:14;  Heb.  9:22;  10:18),  but  another  verb 
than  o4iv/i4,  once  excepted  (Rom.  4:7).  The  difference  between 
the  English  meanings  of  the  verbs  to  pardon  and  to  forgive,  and  of 
the  nouns,  pardon  and  forgiveness,  does  not  exist  between  them, 
therefore,  if  used  to  translate  this  verb  and  this  noun,  or  in  express- 
ing or  teaching"  the  Scriptural  meaning  of  the  one  or  the  other. 
Whichever  of  these  verbs  is  used,  it  caci  neither  include  nor  exclude 
a  shade  of  meaning  different  from  that  of  the"  Greek  verb,  and  so 
can  never  mean  \o  justify,  to  make  righteous,  in  any  sense;  and  which- 
ever of  these  nouns  is  used,  it  must  mean  exactly  what  this  Greek 
noun  does,  and  so  can  never  mean  justificatieti,  or  righteousness  in 
any  sense.  That  verb  signifies  only  the  rectoral  act  of  God  towards 
a  truly  re])entant,  believing  sinner  of  dismissing,  letting  go,  remit- 
^ting  his  sins  in  the  urccisc  t^ense  of  jarcioninj  or  iorgiving,  then:. 


494 


SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 


The  act  does  not  undo  his  sins,  nor  arrest  any  of  their  natural  con- 
sequences, nor  effect  personal  renewal  to  obedience  and  righteous- 
ness in  him;  but  it  fully  exempts  him  from  the  penalty  or  positive 
punishment  his  sins  deserve  from  God,  restoring  him  to  His  favor, 
and  from  nothing  else.  In  no  other  sense  can  sin  or  sins  be  the 
object  of  this  Greek  verb,  or  of  any  of  the  English  verbs  used  to 
translate  it,  than  that  of  remitting  the  penalty  or  penalties  of  it  or 
them,  which  is  a  common  one  through  all  Scripture;  and,  in  no 
other  sense,  than  this  of  exemption  from  the  penalty  or  punishment 
deserved  by  sin  or  sinners  can  either  the  Greek  noun,  or  pardon, 
forgiveness,  or  remission  of  sins,  used  in  translating  it,  be  better 
than  pure  nonsense.  Hence,  this  Greek  verb  and  the  noun  are  pos- 
itive proof  in  themselves,  that  neither  our  Lord,  the  Apostles,  nor 
Mark  and  Luke  believed  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  its  penalty 
or  retributive  punishment;  and,  as  they  doubtless  agreed  on  this 
point  with  the  Jews  of  that  day,  the  Sadducees  excepted,  this  verb 
and  noun  equally  prove  that  neither  then,  nor,  we  confidently  add, 
ever,  back  to  the  patriarchs,  did  that  people  believe  the  perverting 
fiction.  For,  by  what  possibility  could  either  sins,  as  actions,  or 
their  natural  consequences  be  dismissed,  sent  away,  let  go?— could 
pardoning,  forgiving,  remitting  sins  be,  instead  of  an  act  of  God  as 
Ruler,  exempting  the  sinner  from  their  penalty  by  setting  it  aside, 
as  mankind  generally  have  always  attested  it  is,  a  Divine  process  of 
renewing  and  sanctifying,  which  begins  by  arresting  a  few  and  modi- 
fying some  more  of  these  consequences  of  the  sins  of  the  past  life, 
advances  by  very  slowly  adding  to  the  arrests  and  modifications  as  a 
rule,  and  currently  saves  from  those  only  which  persistent  sin  would 
have  induced,  but  leaves  all  the  unarrested  old  ones  and  those  of 
sins  still  sundrily  committed,  like  sores,  ulcers,  and  cancers  on  the 
body,  eating  into  the  moral  nature?  If  any  of  these  inventions 
against  the  simple  truth  expressed  by  either  the  Greek  verb  or  noun, 
or  any  of  the  English  words  used  to  translate  them,  be  accepted, 
both  these  Greek  and  these  English  words  are  wrenched  away  from 
the  only  real  meanings  they  ever  had,  and  forced  to  express  con- 
trary ones  which  they  never  had,  and  which  thus  expressed  by  them 
are  really  nonsensical. 

§  275.    FORGIVENESS  DOES  NOTHING  IN  THE    FORGIVEN,  BUT  IS  WHOLLY 
AN  ACT  FOR  HIM,  RELIEVING  HIM  FROM  PENALTY. 

Of  the  baneful  effects  of  these  perversions  of  the  meanings  of 
these  words,  one  is,  that,  if  they  mean,  instead  of  ej^emption  from 


FORGIVENESS  RELIEVES  FROM  PENALTY.  495 

the  infliction  of  deserved  retributive  punishment,  conservation  from 
committing  sin  itself,  then  sins  are  made  nothing  of,  never  are,  will 
be,  nor  can  be  forgiven  in  the  sense  of  having  their  penalty  set 
aside,  for  their  natural  consequences  never  can  be  in  this,  or  any 
true  sense.  Let  us  understand  this  matter.  To  forgive  or  to  remit 
sins  is  not  a  process  operated  in  the  forgiven.  It  is  an  act  of  the 
forgiver  done  in  himself  in  favor  of  the  forgiven,  not  ///  the  forgiven 
at  all.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  required  to  effect  or  act  the  change 
of  repentance  in.  himself  for  his  sin  or  wrong  done  as  a  condition, 
antecedent  of  course,  of  being  forgiven  or  the  object  of  this  favor; 
and  he  must  abide  in  that  change  afterwards  to  keep  the  favor.  In 
different  form,  forgiveness  or  remission  of  sins  is  a  voluntary  change 
in  the  forgiver  towards  the  forgiven,  by  which  he  ceases  to  hold  and 
treat  him  as  guilty,  and  does  the  contrary;  but  it  is  no  change  what- 
ever in  either  the  person  or  the  character  of  the  forgiven,  either 
when  acted  or  ever  afterwards.  Besides  the  change  of  disposition 
in  the  forgiver  towards  him,  the  act  effects  one  in  their  relations,  by 
which  the  forgiven  is  exempted  from  the  punishment  he  deserves, 
from  the  forgiver,  whether  a  private  person  or  a  ruler;  and  this 
expends  and  ends  its  whole  potency.  This  is  all  as  true  respecting 
forgiveness  by  God  as  by  man,  as  our  Lord  plainly  assumed.*  In 
the  petition — "And  forgive  us  our  debts,  as  we  forgive  our  debtors," 
we  have  in  the  words  "debts"  and  "debtors"  a  certainty  added  to 
'OcizX  oiXht  \tx\i  forgive  itself  in  each  of  the  two  clauses,  the  two 
constituting  a  double  demonstration,  that  forgiveness  is  doing  noth- 
ing whatever  in  the  forgiven,  but  is  an  act  exempting  him  from  the 
punitive  treatment  he  deserves  from  God  or  from  man,  and  owes  to 
suffer  for  as  if  in  payment  of  a  debt.  It  cannot  possibly  exempt 
him  from  the  lurong  acts  he  has  done  against  God  or  man,  nor  from 
their  natural  consequences,  nor  from  anything  whatever,  besides  the 
positive  punitive  treatment  he  deserves  for  them  from  the  forgiver, 
God,  man,  or  both.  To  attempt  to  make  it  exempt  from  anything 
else  is  to  be  the  slave  of  a  theory,  to  juggle  with  language,  and  to 
trifle  with  Scripture  and  man's  endless  interests. 

§276.    MEANING  OF  THE    CREEK    VERB,    RENDERED  TO  JUSTIFY,  AND  OF 
Its  KINDRED  NOUNS  AND  OTHER  WORDS. 

What  \z  shown  in  the  two  preceding  paragraphs  respecting  the 
Greek  verb  and  noun  considered  in  them,  and  their  proper  mean- 
ing, leads  to  some  notice  here  in  immediate  connection  of  the  othei 
(*)  Mat.  6:l2,  14,  15;  9:5,  6;  18:31-35;  Luke  17:3,  4. 


496  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Greek  verb  5i.Kai6u,  to  justify,  and  its  kindred  nouns  and  other 
words,  and  of  the  relation  of  these  to  those.  The  meanings  of  these 
evidently  include,  but  go  vastly  beyond,  those  of  the  former,  and 
constitute  a  very  important  addition  to  the  rest  of  revelation,  one 
which  the  illustrious  mind  of  the  Apostle  Paul  was  inspired  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  perceive,  grasp,  and  express,  as  from  the  Lord  Him- 
self, in  his  Divinely  philosophical  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  some- 
what also  in  that  to  the  Galatians.  What  is  this  addition?  and  what 
is  its  importance?  It  is  the  explicit  teaching  of  the  New  Testament, 
that  all  forgiveness  by  the  Father  is  in,  through,  or  for  the  sake  of 
Christ,  or  is  done  by  Christ  Himself  as  Redeemer/'^  But,  although 
implied,  it  is  nowhere  distinctly  said  that  it  is  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  demands  of  justice,  as  both  ethical  and  retributive,  in  the 
law,  or  that  it  is  not  contrary  to,  or  wholly  irrespective  of  it.  Yet 
this  is  a  point  of  vital  importance  to  be  authoritatively  and  decis- 
ively settled  by  revelation;  for  it  involves  the  question,  whether,  in 
forgiving  sinners,  even  as  just  stated,  God  or  Christ  acts  exactly 
according  to,  or  in  designed  violation  or  disregard  of,  the  perfect 
justice,  ethical  and  retributive,  required  by  the  law  as  the  basis  of 
all  moral  love,  righteousness,  and  good  in  the  total,  everlasting 
society  and  system  which  it  constitutes;  and  so  really  whether  either 
Person,  or  both  as  One,  acts  morally,  extra-morally,  or  anti-morally 
in  forgiving  sinners;  whether  with  or  against  all  moral  nature, 
including  His  own,  as  containing  and  affirming  the  law;  whether 
for  or  against  the  preservation  and  perpetuation  of  all  involved  in 
the  moral  system;  and  so  whether  God  has  a  moral  government, 
and  is  just  and  holy  in  His  benevolence,  so  that  His  character  is  in 
absolute  agreement  with  His  eternal  law.  Any  forgiveness  incon- 
sistent with  the  justice  of  the  law,  both  ethical  and  retributive,  is  of 
necessity  immoral;  and  any  notion  of  it  which  makes  it  a  mere  non- 
rectoral,  personal  act  of  God  towards  the  repentant  sinner,  or  one 
regardless  of  justice,  is  one  of  Him  as  committing  a  supremely  im- 
moral act,  a  imiversal  injustice  and  outrage.  As  there  is  no  justice, 
except  that  enjoined  and  demanded  by  the  law,  forgiveness  must  be 
fundamentally  immoral,  if  not  done  in  perfect  consistency  with 
ethical  justice  to  the  universal  loyal  society,  and  so  with  the  law, 
the  moral  system,  and  the  most  complete  good  possible  of  all  loyal 
to  God  m  the  uni\crse  and  in  the  future  without  end. 


{*J  Acls  5:31;  13:38;  Eph.  1:7;  4:32;  Col.  1:14;  I.  John  1:9;  2:1,  2. 


FORGIVENESS  OX  GROUND  OF  ATONEMENT  ONLY.        497 

§  277.    WHY  FORGIVENESS    CAN  ONLY  BE  ON  THE  GROUND  OF  THE 
ATONEMENT. 

Now,  it  is  a  most  precious  fact,  that  God,  Father,  or  Son,  i^or- 
gives  the  sins  of  all  who  truly  turn  to  Him  from  them  in  faith.  But, 
although  forgiveness  fully  exempts  its  recipient  from  deserved  pen- 
alty and  restores  to  God's  favor,  yet  this  comes  very  far  short  of  all 
involved  in  or  connected  with  it  when  He  forgives  sinners.  It  is, 
indeed,  the  common  understanding  among  men  that  it  does  this  for 
its  objects,  when  acted  by  them  in  their  social,  domestic,  civil,  and 
even  governmental  relations  without  reference  to  the  strict  demands 
of  the  moral  law  and  system,  or  to  any  redemptive  substitutional 
ground.  But,  on  account  of  the  relations  of  sinners  to  the  universal 
society  and  system,  including  God,  who  is  its  Ruler,  and  of  the 
demand  of  the  ethical  justice  of  the  law  to  that  society,  still  loyab 
against  them  for  retributive  justice  upon  them,  it  betrays  a  supris- 
ingly  plentiful  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  necessary,  intrinsic 
polity  of  the  moral  system  and  government  of  God,  to  suppose  it 
possible  for  Him  to  forgive  sinners  according  to  this  understanding, 
without  ruinously  violating  that  polity,  and  doing  infinite  injustice 
and  wrong.  Such  forgiveness  would  be  a  destructive  stroke  at  the 
law,  the  universal  moral  system  and  government,  all  moral  nature, 
and  everything  holy,  just,  and  good  in  the  universe.  Justice  must 
somehow  be  met,  and  its  demands  against  sinners  perfectly  satisfied 
for  them  potentially,  or  God  can  never  rightfully,  never,  except 
with  utter  injustice  and  wrong,  forgive  a  single  one  of  them.  God 
has  met  and  thus  satisfied  them  for  all  by  the  atonement  of  Christ, 
which  fact  proves  that  they  were  an  insurmountable  barrier,  even 
to  Him,  in  the  way  of  His  forgiving  any  without  it,  and  so  un- 
changeably remain.  Consequently  all  forgiveness  by  Him  is  solely 
on  the  ground  of  the  atonement,  and  is  thus  in  absolute  harmony 
with  the  eternal  justice  of  the  law  and  the  moral  system.  Whenever, 
therefore,  to  forgive  or  to  remit  sins,  or  forgiveness  or  remission  of 
sins  is  ascribed  to  God  or  to  Christ  in  Scripture  as  done  to  exempt 
their  actors  from  their  just  punishment,  it  is  always  necessarily  im- 
plied, that  it  is  done  entirely  on  the  ground  stated,  and  of  course 
is  purely  grace  to  them,  but  not  violation  or  disregard  of  the  law, 
as  it  would  be  without  an  atonement.  The  forgiving  act  thus 
includes  putting  the  forgiving  one  perfectly  right  with  the  demands 
of  the  justice  of  the  law  against  him,  so  that  he  is  as  free  from  them 
as  if  he  had  never  sinned.  The  act  is  grounded  wholly  on  the  per- 
fect s.ubstitutional   ethical  justice  done  by  Christ  to  the  universal 


49S  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

loyal  society,  God  included,  by  His  atonement,  which  completely 
met  and  satisfied  the  demand  of  the  retributive  justice  of  the  law 
against  him,  and  also  procured  the  Holy  Spirit,  by  whose  agency  to 
secure  his  regeneration  as  the  condition  of  fitness  for  his  justifica- 
tion, and  with  Him  all  the  other  incomputable  treasures  of  His 
grace  in  time  and  forever  to  all  that  believe. 

§  278.    WHAT  PAUL  USED  THE  GREEK  VERB,  RENDERED  TO  JUSTIFY,  AND 
ITS  KINDRED  NOUNS  AND  OTHER  WORDS  TO  EXPRESS. 

Now,  to  express  this  complete  restoration  to  harmony  of  rela- 
tion with  the  whole  justice  of  the  law  against  sinners,  on  the  ground 
of  the  pei'fect  satisfaction  of  its  demands  against  them  by  the  atone- 
ment, on  condition  of  their  turning  from  sin  in  the  way  required, 
the  Divinely  guided  Apostle  found  the  Greek  verb,  A/Miow,  to  justify, 
with  all  its  kindred  nouns  and  other  words  Providentially  prepared 
and  adapted  to  discharge  the  high  and  holy  function.  This  verb 
no  more  than  yuiiyn  can  possibly  signify,  in  the  active  voice,  to  make 
righteous  in  character  in  its  New  Testament,  especially  its  Pauline  use, 
because  it  includes  the  meaning  of  acphjui,  which,  as  shown,  has  no 
reference  whatever  to  changing  or  mending  character,  but  only  to 
freeing  from  punitive  retribution.  From  the  nature  of  the  case, 
therefore,  the  Divine  act  expressed  by  this  verb,  which  occurs  about 
forty  times  in  the  New  Testament,  does  not  make  its  object  righteous 
in  character  by  regeneration,  or  any  effect  in  him,  but  only  in  a 
purely  forensic  or  Judicial  sense,  which  consists  in  pronounci?ig  or 
declaring  him  perfectly  righteoiis  or  just  as  related  to  the  demands 
against  him  of  the  justice  of  the  law  as  retributive,  because  by  the 
atonement  of  Christ,  applied  to  him  with  forgiveness,  they  have 
been  perfectly  met  and  satisfied  for  him,  and  are  now  no  more 
against  him  than  if  he  had  always  obeyed.  Thus,  on  the  substi- 
tional  basis  of  Christ's  atonement,  he  is  by  grace  through  faith 
declared  and  treated  as  just  in  relation  to  the  justice  of  the  lav/, 
because  lie  is  so.  But  this  act  is  never  done  for  any  persisting  in  sin, 
but  always  and  only  in  immediate  connection  with  the  Holy  Spirit's 
finished  work  of  regeneration,  which  includes  the  first  exercise  of 
faith,  by  which  the  soul  is  united  to  and  spiritually  in  Christ. 

§  279.    THE  ADJECTIVE    fi'iKaioq  SPECIALLY  NOTICED,  AND  THE  NOUNS  AND 
ADVERU  KINDRED. 

It  is  instructive  as  well  as  important  to  notice  briefly  the  adjec- 
tive (5i/caiof  and  the  nouns  and  the  adverb  kindred  to  it  and  to  this 


S;pE  CI  ALL  Y  NO  TIC  ED.  ig^j 

verb.  Even  a  glance  at  them  will  show  how  fundameutally  the 
redemptive  system  of  salvation  through  Christ  and  on  the  ground  o2 
His  atonement  not  only  consists  with,  and  is  adjusted  to,  but  main- 
tains and  includes  the  justice  of  the  law,  both  ethical  and  retribu- 
tive, in  absolute  integrity,  as  the  grand  and  only  social-moral  intertie 
between  moral  beings,  binding  them  to  universal  reciprocity  of  pure, 
just,  and  holy  moral  love  with  each  other  and  with  God.  A  law  with 
justice  left  out  would  be  no  moral  law,  but  an  unjust  imposture  on  the 
intelligent  universe,  which  could  be  only  a  universal  chaos  of  anarchy. 
It  matters  not  whether  A'/ca«of  is  fromcJa'"  or  tW,  though  we  think  it  fi^om 
the  latter,  which  means  right,  justice,  Jus;  it  means  righteous,  Just, 
Justus,  especially  in  Scripture  (Heb.  tsedeq);  and  righteous  a.nd  Just  are 
exactly  synonymous,  and,  in  the  New  Testament,  are  indifferently 
used  in  rendering  this  Greek  adjective,  the  former  tliirty-seven  times, 
the  latter  thirty-three.  In  four  of  the  five  times  it  is  applied  to 
Christ,  it  is  rendered yV/i'/,  in  one,  righteous  (Acts  3:14;  7:52;  22:14; 
I.  Pet.  3:18;  I.  John  2:1),  and,  in  II.  Tim.  4:8,  He  is  called  "the 
righteous  Judge."  Either  of  these  words  instead  of  the  other  would 
mean  precisely  the  same  as  it  does  in  any  of  these  five  places;  and 
the  same  would  be  the  case  in  any  of  the  sixty-Jive  other  places,  if 
reasons  of  style  permitted  a  change.  But,  as  a  rule,  we  prefer  Just 
as  the  most  definite  and  expressive  of  the  two.  The  core-meaning 
of  every  ethical  Greek  word  formed  from  A/.-^  is  Justice,  as  it  is  of 
every  such  Hebrew  word  from  p"]l»,  tsedeq,  of  every  such  Latin 
word  from  Jus,  of  every  such  German  word  from  recht,  of  every 
such  English  word  from  right,  and  of  every  such  word  in  any  other 
language,  ancient  or  modern,  from  the  corresponding  root-word  in 
it.  Christ  is  called  "the  just"  "the  righteous,"  in  the  passages  refer- 
red to  above,  not  only  as  peerless  among  men  in  His  perfect  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  and  the  will  of  His  Father,  but  as  provisionally 
fulfilling,  in  His  freely  assumed  Mediatorial  relations  to  God  and 
man  as  man's  Redeemer,  by  His  obedience  unto,  and  in  His  volun- 
tarily endured  sufferings  and  death,  all  the  requirements  of  the  law 
He  had  come  under  for  mankind  in  sin  (Gal.  4:4;  Mat.  3:15),  and 
all  the  demands  of  its  justice  against  them  by  His  atonement.  The 
designation,  !>  <yiKaiot,,  the  Just  or  the  righteous,  is  doubtless  taken  from 
Is.  53:11,  p"""!^,  the  righteous  one,  rendered  (nViKaioz  in.  the  Sept.;  for 
it  is  there  used  with  direct  reference  to  His  having  made  the  atone- 
ment. In  I.  John  2:1,  it  is  evidently  used  with  the  same  reference, 
as  it  is  followed  by — "  And  ECe  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins;  and 
not  for  ours  only,  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world;  "  and,  in 


500  SCI^TPTURAL   TEACHTNGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Acts  ^:i4'-  7:52,-  and  I.  Pet.  3:18,  it  also  seems  plain  from  the  con- 
nections, that  Peter,  like  John,  uses  this  designation  by  the  great 
evangelical  prophet  with  the  same  reference.  Ananias  also,  in  his 
words  to  the  just  converted  Saul  (Acts  22:14),  adopted  it  from  the 
same  place,  and  uses  it  with  the  same  reference.  It  should  certainly 
be  noticed  here,  not  only  that  this  designation  singles  out  our  Lord 
as  perfect  and  peerless  among  men  in  fulfilling  all  requirements  of 
justice  as  ethical,  and  all  its  demands  as  penally  retributive  for  the 
salvation  of  men,  but  that  it  is  one  which  sentimentalists  would 
never  have  given  Him.  Given  by  them,  it  would  be — the  sympa- 
thizer— the  pitiful — the  merciful — the  loving — the  benevolent — the 
tender  brother,  or  some  like  one,  which  would  express  His  fellow- 
feeling  with,  and  yearning  disposition  towards,  mankind;  whereas 
6  ()(hrt/o.;,  the  just,  or  ri^^hteoiis,  has  none  of  these  meanings,  nor  any 
like  them,  expressive  of  His  feeling,  affection,  or  disposition  towards 
them  as  sinners,  or  at  all,  but  simply,  that  He  is  the  one  who  trans- 
cendently  does,  vindicates,  and  maintains  justice.  All  mere  senti- 
mental flummery  is  debarred  from  even  its  threshold.  He  is  the 
righteous  one  specially  because  "  He  bore  the  iniquities  of  men,"  "is 
the  i)ropitiation  for  them,"  "once  suffered  for  them,"  "has  been 
killed,"  "has  been  betrayed  and  murdered."  It  is  an  essential  point 
in  the  true  Scriptural  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  that  Christ  was  the 
Divinely  constituted  representative  of  mankind,  and,  as  such,  obeyed 
and  suffered  and  died  for  them;  and  the  consideration  of  that  point 
will  add  light  and  force  to  the  preceding.  But,  before  considering 
that,  we  must  notice  other  Greek  words  formed  from  (5^17?, 

§  2S0.    ^[F,ANINGS  OF  THESE  GREEK  WORDS. 

AiKnmnhn/  meaus  rightcousncss,  the  state  of  being  righteous  or 
Justin  agreement  of  character  or  of  judicial  relation  with  the  essen- 
tial (piality  of  the  law  as  righteous  or  just.  It  belongs  to  those 
only  of  men  wlio  receive  it  by  faith  as  a  gracious  gift  from  God 
(Rom.  4:3,  5,  6,  9,  II,  13,  22;  5:17;  S:io;  and  elsewhere).  AiKaiumr 
means  justification,  the  judicial  justifying  act  of  God,  which  sets  a 
believing  sinner  right,  straight,  square  with  the  demands  of  the 
retributive  justice  of  the  law  against  him,  and  puts  him  in  the  state 
of  righteousness,  (tiKaioavvn,  (Rom.  4:25:  5:18').  ^iKnU.ma  means  a 
righteous  or  just  decree,  judgment,  or  requirement  (^Luke  1:6; 
Rom.  1:32;  2:26;  8:4;  Pleb.  9:1,  10;  Rev.  15:4;  or,  as  in  classic 
Crreek,  a  j-ig/iteous  or  Just  act  or  deed,  an  action  of  justice,  the  amend- 
ment, rectification,  or  making  good  oj,  a  wrong  (Rom.  5:16,  iS;  Rev. 


RTGHTEOUSMESS  OF  GOD.  501 

19:8,  New  Ver.y  In  Rom.  5:18,  it  clearly  has  this  classic  meaning; 
for  its  connection  in  the  verse  requires  tliis,  and  its  meaning  there  is 
plainly  included  in  that  of  v-c.mri '\^  verse  19  (Phil.  2:8;  Heb.  5:8; 
12:2).  Its  meaning  in  verse  16  must,  it  seems  to  us,  be  essentially 
the  same — an  act  of  rigliieoitsness,  as  in  the  margin  of  the  New  Ver- 
sion. The  adverb  (Vmluz  means  justly,  rightly,  with  strict  justice 
(Luke  23:41;  I.  Pet.  2:23).  This  verb  and  these  other  words  formed 
from  'V/.T/  were  used  by  the  Greek  ethical  philosophers  who  held 
justice  to  be  the  root  and  sum  of  all  virtue;  and,  as  used  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  especially  by  Paul,  are  translations  of  the  Hebrew 
,verb  and  other  words  corresponding,  and  exactly  represent  their 
meanings,  as  a  comparison  of  the  Lexicons  clearly  shows.  The 
truth  clearly  demonstrated  by  the  uses  of  the  verb  and  kindred  words 
under  consideration  in  each  of  these  languages  of  Scripture  is,  that 
justice  is  the  fundamental  quality  of  the  law.  and  of  obedience  to 
it,  and  can  never  be  discarded,  nor  in  the  least  disregarded  by  God, 
nor  cease  to  be  the  basis  of  morality,  of  the  moral  system,  of 
moral  government,  of  moral  love,  and  of  all  true  moral  philosophy 
and  theology.* 

§281.    MEANING    OF    THE    EXPRESSION    I'lmmaimj  Ofmv,    RIGHTEOUSNES: 

OF  GOD. 

The  expression,  "righteousness  of  God,"  is  used  by  the  Apostle 
Paul  in  Rom.  1:17,  where  he  states  the  theme  of  the  Epistle,  and  in 
3:21,  22,  25,  26;  10:3.  From  all  these  passages,  taken  in  their  con- 
nection, it  is  manifest  that,  by  the  expression,  he  does  not  mean 
God's  personal  righteousness  of  character,  as  some  suppose.  For, 
in  them,  he  sets  this  "righteousness  of  God  "  in  direct  antithesis  to 
a  supposed  righteousness  of  the  law,  one  of  works  or  deeds  of  man 
in  supposed  obedience  to  it,  and  called  our  own;  and  he  denies  that 
any  of  mankind  ever  did  or  can  have  it,  and  asserts  that  they  all 
may,  and  are  required  to  have  God's  by  faith  without  works,  that  all 
who  believe  have  it,  and  that  it  is  the  only  righteousness  possible 
for  man.  Instead  of  its  being  that  of  God's  character  which  is 
essentially  identical  with  His  holiness,  it  is  one  which  He  originated 
and  provided  purposely  for  fallen  and  guilty  man— one  of  which  He 
is  the  Author  {Ouw,  gen.  auctoris),  one  which  did  not  exist  till  He 
originated  it  in  and   through  our  Lord  Jesus   Ghrist.      His  personal 


(*)  For  the  meaning  of  the  Greek  verb  antl  words  Irom  i^n^n,  see  Exegetical 
Notes  in  Lange's  Com.  on  Romans,  on  Chap.  1:17;  2:13;  3:20,  24,  especially  those 
added  by  Dr.  Schafi— also,  on  Gal.,  Chap.  2:16,  of  the  Lange  Series,  and  No.  2, 
(b)  of  Doc.  and  Ethical. 


562  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

righteousness  is  eternal,  and  consists  in  His  eternal  harmony  with 
the  justice,  matter  and  end  of  the  law  in  His  own  uncreated  nature. 
He  created  man  in  His  own  image,  and  therefore  having  the  same 
law  in  his  nature,  who,  because  he  was  finite  and  dependent,  was 
necessarily  subject  to  Himself,  as  his  moral  Governor.  And  when, 
by  the  fall  of  Adam,  the  race  were  all  constituted  sinners,  God's 
personal  righteousness  by  absolute  harmony  with  this  eternal  law  in 
Him,  caused  Him,  instead  of  summarily  destroying  it  in  its  head,  to 
spare  and  continue  it,  as  it  had  caused  Him,  foreknowing  the  fall, 
to  devise  the  plan  of  redemption  for  it  in  and  through  Christ,  who,, 
crucified,  Paul  declares  to  be  "  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom 
of  God."  But,  acting  by  the  same  law,  He  will  finally  execute  the 
penalty  of  it,  as  in  and  over  men,  upon  all  of  them  who  shall  remain 
incorrigible.  But  no  special  actings  ever  done  or  to  be  done  by 
Him  are  His  absolute  personal  righteousness,  being  only  manifesta- 
tions of  it.  There  is  a  clear  distinction  between  the  righteousness 
of  character  or  heart,  and  that  of  acts  or  courses.  The  former  is 
back  of,  and  the  moral  ground  or  fountain  of  all  the  latter;  and,  in 
itself,  is  executive  of  nothing;  while  the  latter  is  wholly  that  of  execu- 
tive acts,  courses,  and  measures  for  the  special  ends  to  secure  which 
they  are  acted.  God's  personal  righteousness  is  not  maintained 
with  any  special  reference  to  mankind  or  any  other  order  of  crea- 
tures, or  to  the  special  benefit  of  any,  but  has  equal  relation,  to  all; 
and  there  is  no  ground  on,  or  way  in,  which  it  can  be  communi- 
cated, or  reckoned  to  any  of  mankind  for  justification.  It  is  abso- 
lutely incommunicable  in  any  sense  to  any  creature;  and  therefore 
it  cannot  be  "  the  righteousness  of  God  "  intended  by  the  Apostle. 
For,  (i)  this  is  reckonable  "  unto  all,  and  upon  all  of  them  that 
believe;  "  (2)  it  was  originated  anc"  provided  in  and  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  with  reference  uo  the  benefit  of  men,  but  with 
none  to  any  other  creatures;  (3)  it  was  designed  to  be  to  all  receiv- 
ing it  by  faith  instead  of  the  perfect,  personal  righteousness  which 
they  would  have  had  by  perfect  obedience,  which  they  all  lacked- 
(4)  it  was  to  be  to  all  so  receiving  it  a  gift  of  pure  grace  for  their 
justification;  (5)  it  did  not  therefore  include  anything  in  God's  per- 
sonal character,  and  was  wholly  gracious  for  salvation;  (6)  it  consists 
entirely  in  the  perfect  obedience  of  Christ  unto  death  (Rom.  5:19) 
or  unto  a  righteous  act  (Rom.  5:18);  (Phil.  2:8)  in  making  atone- 
ment for  the  sins  of  the  world.  This  is  the  righteousness  of  God 
intended — that  provided  by  Him  for  men  who  neither  have  nor  can 
have  any  other. 


OBEDIENCE  OF  CHRIST  TO  MEN.  503 

§  282.    THE  RELATION  OF  THIS  RIGHTEOUSNESS    OR  OBEDIENCE  OF 
CHRIST  TO  MEN. 

This  is  the  core-question  concerning  the  matter  of  justification; 
and  it  is  profoundly  important  to  understand  it.  It  is  said  by  some 
that  the  obedience  of  Christ  was  His  own  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
man's  would  be  his,  if  he  had  perfectly  obeyed — that  the  obligation 
on  Him  to  obey  was  the  same  as  it  is  on  other  men;  and  therefore 
could  not  be  for  men  any  more  than  a  perfectly  obedient  man's 
would  be.  This  view  we  once  adopted,  and  held  for  some  years; 
but  many  years  ago  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  matter  com- 
pelled us  to  reject  it,  as  inconsistent  with  Scripture,  with  the  doc- 
trine of  the  atonement,  and  with  all  the  relation  of  Christ  to  men 
as  a  Saviour;  and  to  hold  instead  that  His  obedience  was  no  men-  for 
Himself  than  His  atoning  sufferings  and  death  in  it  were,  but  was 
equally  for  man.  One  radical  reason  for  holding  this  is,  that,  as  we 
think  we  have  conclusively  shown,  He  did  not  come  to  stand  in  the 
same  relation  to  mankind  in  which  any  other  of  them  since  the  first 
man  ever  has  stood  or  ever  will  stand,  but  to  be  the  supernatural 
Head  and  religious  representative  of  them  all  with  God,  the 
Father,  as  Ruler  and  Administrator  of  the  law.  He  left  "the  glory 
He  had  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was"  (John  17:5,  11,  22; 
10:30;  14:9,  10;  Phil.  2:6),  and  "became  poor"  (H.  Cor.  8:9),  by 
coming  incarnate,  under  the  law,  and  obeying  under  it  unto  death 
wholly  and  therefore  representatively  for  men  as  the  one  Mediator 
between  God  and  them'''  His  relation  to  them  was  thus  entirely 
peculiar,  special,  official,  and  so  therefore  was  all  His  action  in  it. 
A  second  reason  no  less  radical  is,  that  He  was  under  no  obligation 
of  justice  to  do  any  part  of  all  this  for  mankind.  Before  beginning 
it.  He  was,  equally  with  the  Father,  not  only  under  no  law,  rule,  or 
authority  out  of  Himself,  but  was  Ruler,  as  Fie  was  Creator,  of  all 
creatures.  His  love  of  all  rational  creatures,  was  identical  with  the 
Father's,  being  wholly  in  accordance  with  the  eternal  law  in  the 
Divine  nature.  It  was  owed  and  rendered  to  all  the  sinless  of  them  by 
natural  right,  and  to  all  the  purely  obedient  of  them  by  moral  right 
also;  and  so  by  an  obligation  of  justice.  But,  while  the  obligation 
in  Him  was  to  render  perfect  moral  love  to  them,  which  is  a  thing 
of  the  heart  or  will,  that  on  Him  to  act  as  Ruler,  or  to  fill  any  office, 
was  only  to  stand  and  act  in  a  special,  outward,  executive  relation; 
and,  as  such  action  is  not  necessarily  intrinsic  in  moral   love,  but 

(*)  Mat.  20:28;  Luke  19:10;  John  3:16,  17;  Rom.  5:18,  19;  Gal.  4:4;  I.  Tim. 
2:5,  6;  Ileb.  2:9,  lo,  14,  15;  I.  John  4:14. 


504  SCRIPTURAL   TEACtllNGS  OM  T//E  ATOMEMEMT. 

only  according  to  relations  and  conditions,  He  was  free,  for  the 
sake  of  accomplishing  a  greater  good,  to  abdicate  His  rulership  in 
the  universe  and  all  "  the  glory  He  had  with  the  Father  before  the 
world  was,"  and  to  "  take  upon  Him  the  form  of  a  servant"  "under 
the  law,"  to  be  "  made  in  the  likeness  of  men,"  and  to  "  become 
obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross  " — all  not  for  Him- 
self, but  wholly,  exclusively,  in  immediate  purpose  and  aim,  for 
mankind — that  is,  to  become  their  repesentative  with  the  Father,  and 
to  do  and  to  suffer  for  them  all  He  did  as  such.  As  He,  without  the 
slightest  obligation  of  justice  to  i/iein,  and  moved  solely  by  His 
pity  for  and  merciful  love  towards  them,  vacated  His  "form  of 
God,"  and  became  incarnate  and  "  under  the  law,"  as  God's  positive, 
authoritative  rule  of  action  for  men  with  its  enforcing  sanctions, 
both  to  obey  it,  and  to  meet  the  retributive  demand  of  its  justice 
against  them,  to  redeem  and  save  them,  His  obeying  in  this  servant- 
form  was  as  entirely  for  them  as  were  His  sufferings  and  death.  In 
both  alike  He  acted  for  and  represented  them  with  and  according 
to  the  will  of  the  Father,  which  He  put  Himself  under,  to  repre- 
sent and  act  for  them  in  obeying  it  as  well  as  in  suffering  its  penalty 
against  them.  As  He  came  under  it  for  this  special,  <?^(r/Vz/ pur- 
pose, and  as  it  neither  had,  nor  thus  acquired  any  authority  over 
Him,  except  what  He  thus  gave  it  for  this  definite,  official  purpose, 
He  could  neither  obey  it,  nor  suffer  and  die  under  it  for  an}^  other 
reason  than  that  He  was  the  Divinely  constituted  and  appointed 
official  representative  of  the  fallen  race. 

§  283.    THE  MERIT  OF  CHRIST  FOR    HIS  OBEDIENCE  WITHOUT  LIMIT  AND 
FOR  ALL  WHO  WILL  BELIEVE. 

Omitting  now  to  consider  all  involved  in  His  obedience  as 
man's  representative,  this  is  certainly  true  respecting  Him  in  it,  and 
His  merit  acquired  by  it  was  measureless,  and,  like  it,  was,  of  course, 
for  them  provisionally  in  connection  with  Himself,  so  as  to  invest 
every  one  of  them,  who  receives  Him  as  a  Saviour,  with  an  ever- 
lasting title  to  participate  in  its  deserved  rewards,  even  to  be  joint- 
heirs  of  God  with  Him.  As  His  representative  substitution  of  Him- 
self in  His  sufferings  and  death  for  them,  liable  to  the  penal  sufferings 
deserved  by  their  sins,  met  the  demand  of  retributive  justice  in  the 
law  against  them,  so  His  representative  obedience  for  them  met  the 
demand  of  ethical  justice  in  it  provisionally  for  the  obedience  oi  all, 
actually  for  it  of  all  who  receive  Him;  so  that  both  these  demands 
of  it  against  mankind  v/ere   perfectly   met  by  Him  as  their  repre- 


THE  MERIT  OE  CHRIST  WITHOUT  LIMIT.  505 

sentative  with  God  in  the  two  modes  indicated.  His  obedience, 
like  His  atonement,  was  rendered  to  God  for  them  as  sinners;  and 
while  His  obedience,  as  such,  was  not  and  could  not  be  transferred 
or  ascribed  to  any  of  them,  its  effect  in  and  upon  God  towards  all  of 
them  who  believe  in  or  receive  Clirist  was  such  that  its  merit  or  desert 
of  God's  favor  and  reward  can  be  ascribed,  accounted,  reckoned,  im- 
puted to  them,  so  that  they  can  be  treatetl  as  if  it  was  tlieir  own. 
Thus  the  demands  of  the  law  and  its  justice  are  absolutely  met  and 
maintained  by  C-hrist  for  men;  and  God,  in  all  His  merciful  and 
gracious  traatment  of  them,  not  only  so  treats  them  for  Christ's 
sake,  but  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  law  and  its  justice,  and  so 
in  absolute  righteousness.  Christ,  therefore,  representatively  ful- 
filled a  perfect  righteousness  according  to  the  law  and  its  justice, 
both  ethical  and  retributive,  for  all  men  provisionally,  for  all  who 
believe  actually,  so  that  "  God  can  be  strictly  just,  and  yet  the  jus- 
tifier  of  him  that  has  faith  in  Jesus,"  and  those  justified  "are  not 
under  the  law,  but  under  grace."  Thus,  as  Paul  shows  in  Rom.  5: 
14-19,  Christ  is  the  contrast  of  Adam  as  related  to  mankind.  They 
were  both  heads  and  representatives  of  the  race  and  acted  for  it. 
In  so  acting,  they  were  both  on  a  legal  probation.  Adam  fell  in  his, 
and  brought  all  men  into  sin  and  condemnation,  so  that  He  and 
they  were  utterly  lost,  for  aught  they  could  or  would  ever  do.  Christ 
stood  in  His,  and  by  His  obedience  for  them,  consummated  in 
making  an  atonement  to  God  for  them,  by  which  He  fully  redeemed 
them  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  the  punishment  to  which  they 
were  condemned,  He  equally  met  the  whole  ethical  demand  of  the 
law  upon  them  for  their  life-long,  perfect,  personal  obedience,  pro- 
visionally for  them  all,  actually  for  all  of  them  who  believe,  so  that 
God  can,  in  absolute  justice,  not  only  forgive,  but  justify,  pronounce 
Just  or  righteous,  according  to  the  law,  every  one  of  these,  as  z/they 
were  fautlessly  obedient  themselves,  and  can  justly  confer  on  them  the 
rewards  merited  by  that  perfect  obedience  of  Christ  as  if  they  were 
merited  by  like  obedience  of  their  own.  Such  is  this  righteousness 
of  Christ  provided  by  God,  and  so  "  the  righteousness  of  God;"  and 
this  only  is  meant  in  all  the  places  where  this  expression  occurs. 

What,  then,  must  be  the  value,  virtue,  and  merit  of  Christ's 
obedience  through  His  entire  life  of  probation  under  the  law  as  the 
representative  of  our  fallen  race,  culminated  in  voluntarily  substi- 
tuting Himself  in  His  sufferings  and  death  for  them  to  rescue  them 
from  the  necessity  of  suffering  the  penalty  of  the  law?  Merit  or 
desert  of  reward   for    and   according   to   obedience   is   intuitively 


So6  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

affirmed  by  universal  conscience;  and  His,  therefore,  must  be  great 
beyond  all  finite  measure  or  conception — desert  of  the  greatest  pos- 
sible reward  that  even  God  could  give.  What  reward,  according 
to  the  Scriptures,  did  He  actually  receive  from  the  Father?  (i) 
The  resurrection  of  his  body  from  the  dead  (Is.  53:10;  Ps.  16:9, 11; 
Acts  2:24-32;  13:32-37).  (2)  Its  endowment  with  all  possible  per- 
fection and  glory  (Phil.  3:21;  Rev.  1:14-16).  (3)  His  exaltation  to 
the  throne  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  all  powen  in  heaven  being 
given  to  Him,  and  all  creatures  made  subject  to  Him  (Ps.  2:6,  8; 
no  throughout;  Dan  7:13,  14;  Mat.  11:27;  28:18;  John  3:35;  13:3; 
Eph.  1:20-23;  Phil.  2:9,  11;  Heb.  1:3-13;  ct  al).  (4)  His  being 
made  the  final  Judge  of  men  and  angels  (Mat.  25:31-46;  John  5:22, 
27;  Acts  10:42;  17:31;  Rom.  14:10,  11;  H.  Cor.  5:10;  Jude  14:15). 
(5)  His  being  made  heir  of  all  things  (Rom.  8:17;  Heb.  1:2;  and 
all  passages  stating  what  God  has  given  Him).  (6)  His  being,  as 
incarnate  still,  the  object  of  the  worship  of  the  angels  as  well  as  of 
the  redeemed  (Phil.  2:10;  Heb.  1:6;  Rev.  5:12,  13).  (7)  His  being 
the  giver  of  the  Holy  Spirit  for  His  offices  on  men  (John  14:16,  17, 
25,  26;  16:7-15;  Acts  1:4,  5,  8;  Luke  24:49;  Acts  2:2-18,  2,7,)-  (8) 
The  Father's  justification  of  all  regenerated  by  the  Spirit  on  the 
ground  of  His  obedience  and  His  atonement  made  in  it — His  adop- 
tion of  them  as  His  children,  making  them  Christ's  brethren,  coheirs 
with  Him  and  partakers  of  His  power  and  glory — His  raising  them 
from  the  dead  by  Plis  Spirit  in  the  image  of  Christ,  having  bodies 
like  His  in  glory — and  all  signified  by  their  being  united  to  Him,  His 
members.  His  body,  and  Plis  wife.  All  these  and  more,  we  are  told, 
are  embraced  in  the  measureless  reward  to  Christ  by  the  Father  as 
the  Ruler  of  the  intelligent  universe.  Oh,  that  believers  would  think 
with  faith  what  momentous  things  are  theirs  and  before  them! 

§  2S4.  ALL  Christ's  rewards  due  him  ey  moral  right  and  justice; 

ALL  DONE  FOR  MEN  GRACE. 

As  Christ  went  through  a  purely  legal  probation  under  the  law, 
and  perfectly  obeyed  it  throughout,  according  to  the  connected 
merit-principle.  He  absolutely  deserved,  and  so  had  a  moral  right 
to,  all  the  rewards  He  received  and  ever  will  receive,  so  that  they 
were  due  to  Him  as  pure  justice — are  wholly  according  to  the  law 
and  its  perfect  justice.  Of  course.  He  had  and  has  an  absolute 
right  to  do  with  them  as  He  will  in  His  holy  love  and  wisdom.  But, 
in  no  sense  are  any  of  all  the  things  He  does  or  secures  for  men 
either  as  sinners  or  as  believers  deserved  by  them,  so  that  they  have 


JUSTIFICATION.  507 

no  right  of  their  own  whatever  to  them  from  Him  or  from  God,  but 
deserve  the  contrary.  Their  sin  has  both  forfeited  all  right  to  His 
favor  and  deserved  subjection  to  punishment,  so  that  all  they  receive 
better  than  punishment  is  absolutely  of  grace.  But,  because  all 
things  are  given  to  Christ  by  justice,  He  has  a  right  by  the  law  to 
give  what  He  will  to  believers;  so  that  there  is  no  inconsistency 
with  nor  disregard  of  the  law  in  all  His  bestowments  of  grace  upon 
them,  though  sinners  deserving  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  the  law, 
solely  because  by  His  representative  obedience  and  His  atonement 
made  for  them  to  God  in  it.  He  not  only  perfectly  met  all  its 
demands  upon  and  against  them,  but  turned  it  and  its  justice  to 
Him,  as  their  representative,  entirely  in  their  favor  and  made  them 
His  allies  and  servitors  for  their  good. 

§  285.    JUSTIFICATION  IN  THE    LIGHT  OF  THE  PRECEDING. 

Such  is  the  rationale  of  the  relation  of  the  obedience  or  right- 
eousness of  Christ  or  of  God  to  believers;  and  we  can  see  no  good 
ground  for  any  objection  to  it.  In  it  we  have  essentially  the  whole 
matter  of  justificatioii.  Paul,  guided  by  the  inspiring  Spirit,  pene- 
trated to  the  foundation  of  the  relations  of  man  as  a  sinner  to  the 
law  and  to  God  as  its  Administrator,  and  saw  what  was  necessary 
to  restore  Jiiin  to  all  right  relations  to  both.  Justification  on  the 
grounds  stated  is  that  restoration,  and  the  only  one  possible  for  sinners. 
It  is  not  something  done  in  a  man,  but  it  is  done  for  him;  not  sub- 
jective, but  objective;  not  any  action  or  morality  of  his,  but  the  action 
and  morality  of  God  for  him,  utterly  incapable  of  doing  anything  to 
restore  himself.  It  is  called  forensic  ■xw^  judicial  to  express  the  fact 
that  it  is  done  for  him  by  God  as  Ruler  and  Judge,  as  an  act  of 
judgment,  which  absolves  him  from  the  necessity  of  suffering  the 
penalty  of  the  law  deserved  by  his  sins  on  the  ground  of  Christ's 
atonement,  and  places  him  in  the  relation  to  the  law  and  to  God  of 
one  perfectly  obedieat  on  the  ground  of  the  perfect  obedience  of 
Christ  for  him  as  his  representative  in  addition  to  His  atonement. 
It  thus  restores  him  to  all  the  objective  relations  to  the  law  and 
government  of  God  and  to  God  Himself,  which  pertain  to  the  per- 
fectly obedient — nay,  even  to  Christ  Himself,  his  representative,  as 
far  as  he,  a  creature,  is  capable  of  being  in  them.  It  is  an  act  of 
absolute  grace  in  God,  a  gift  by  grace  (Rom.  5:15-17);  and,  on  the 
part  of  its  object,  "it  is  of  faith,  that  it  may  be  by  grace"  (Rom.  4: 
16).  It  is,  therefore,  vastly  more  than  mere  pardon  or  forgiveness, 
although  this,  in  itself,  is  inestimably  great  grace,  as  it  frees  its 


5oS  SCRIPTURAL  TEAC/I/JVGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

object  from  liability  to  the  penalty  he  deserves  for  his  sins.  But 
justification  towers  above  this  by  perfectly  restoring  its  object  to  all 
the  relations  to  the  law  and  government  of  God,  to  God  Himself, 
and  to  Christ,  which  we  have  stated;  and  we  must  believe  it  is  per- 
petual. Doubtless,  pardon,  forgiveness,  remission  of  sins  is  never 
acted,  except  as  included  in  or  part  of  justification.  It  is  entirely 
distinct  from  both  regeneration  and  sanctification.  While  it  is  an 
act  of  God  done  for  its  object  and  not  ///  him,  they  are  both  works 
of  the  Spirit  in  their  object — the  former  finished  when  the  new-birth 
is  accomplished;  the  latter,  initiated  by  regeneration,  continues 
through  life,  or  the  probation  of  life.  That  no  justified  person  can 
live  in  habitual  sin  is  sufficiently  shown  in  a  preceding  place  con- 
cerning regeneration;  for,  in  this,  the  lioly  Spirit  initiates  a  new 
heart  or  moral  action  of  the  will,  involving  that  of  the  entire  moral 
nature,  the  intelligence,  the  sensibility,  and  the  conscience,  the  core 
of  which  action  is  faith.  In  sanctification  He  continually  nourishes 
cherishes,  quickens  and  strengthens  this  heart  and  carries  on  His 
work  in  it  by  taking  the  things  of  Christ  and  showing  them  to  the 
renewed  and  illuminated  eyes  of  the  mind,  till  at  death  the  process 
is  finished.  The  6th  Chapter  of  Romans  and  the  8:i-i6  refute  all 
the  foolish  objections  to  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone 
or  "without  works"  (Rom.  3:20-22,  28;  4:2-6;  and  numerous  other 
places),  which  have  been  repeated  from  the  Apostles'  day  to  this, 
among  which  is,  that  "it  gives  license  to  continue  in  sin."  Were  it 
not  "  by  faith  without  works,"  not  one  of  our  race  ever  could  be 
justified,  because  not  one  responsible  actor  of  it  ever  did  or  could 
do  any  works  of  real  obedience  to  God  or  moral  love  to  man  with- 
out this  very  faith  of  justification,  which  alone  "works  by  love,  pur- 
ifies the  heart,  and  overcomes  the  world."  No  morality  without  it 
has  any  root  of  real  moral  love  to  God  or  man,  and  is  commonly 
from  mere  policy,  interest,  training,  habit,  or  hypocrisy. 

§  286.    SENSE    IN    WHICH  WHAT  WE    HAVE    SHOWN    INVOLVES    THE    DOC- 
TRINE   OK    IMPUTATION. 

If  one  says — "  Why,  what  you  have  presented  involves  the  old 
doctrine  of  imputation,  that  the  righteousness  of  Christ  is  imputed 
to  believers,"  our  reply  is  the  following:  What  we  have  shown  is  the 
7-ationale  of  justification,  as  we  understand  it  to  be  clearly  taught 
and  involved  in  the  teachings  of  Scripture.  With  us,  the  question 
never  has  been,  and  certainly  not  in  this  work,  what  any  formula  of 
doctrine,  old  or  new,  asserts,  but  what  is  the  Scriptural  truth  taught 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  IMPUTATION.  509 

on  any  point  which  is  purely  one  of  Scripture.  We  have  often 
designedly  av^oided  the  use  of  terms,  though  Scriptural,  which  have 
been  made  theological  shibboleths  between  the  holders  and  the  op- 
posers  of  particular  tenets,  and  have  been  used  for  generations  in 
controversies  frequently  far  less  holy  than  ardent.  But  having  care- 
fully shown  the  teaching  of  Scripture  on  this  matter  of  justification, 
so  that  readers  can  see  for  themselves  what  it  is,  we  now  declare 
our  full  conviction  that,  in  the  proper  Scriptural  sense  of  the  term, 
justification  is  by  imputation.  For,  in  that  sense,  imputation  is 
reckoning,  accounting  to  one  or  more,  not  what  is  not,  but  what  is 
in  fact  really  true.'''  Abraham's  faith  was  not  in  itself  righteousness, 
but  was  imputed,  reckoned,  accounted  to  him  for  it,  unto  it;  and 
the  same  is  true  of  the  faith  of  all  believers  in  Christ.  God  holds 
them  all  as  righteous,  square  with  the  law  and  its  justice,  and  so  with 
His  government,  in  \}c\q  forensic  sense;  and  He  holds  them  so  not  in 
fiction,  but  in  fact,  not  in  disregard  of  the  law  and  its  justice,  but  in 
perfect  accordance  with  them,  because  Christ  has  met  all  their 
demands  for  them;  not  therefore  iininorally,  but  absolutely  morally. 
It  is  from  His  pure  mercy  and  grace  to  them,  that  God  pardons, 
forgives,  remits  their  sins,  justifies  them;  but  He  does  not  do  this 
without  ])erfect  regard  to  the  law  with  its  justice  and  to  the  universal 
and  eternal  moral  system  constituted  by  it.  He  does  it  not  as  an 
independent,  infinite  Person  totally  unbound  by  these  and  acting  as 
He  pleases  in  the  arbitrary  sense;  for  He  is  a  7;/<v-<?/ being,  having 
the  law  in  His  eternal  nature,  and  having  created  all  other  such 
natures  with  it  in  them.  He,  therefore,  is  not  out  of,  but  in  the 
universal  moral  society  and  system  with  them,  and  cannot  act  mor- 
ally independent  of,  or  without  perfect  regard  to  these — that  is,  to 
the  law  with  its  justice  by  which  these  are  constituted.  Hence,  it  is 
not,  cannot  be  a  merely  Personal  matter  for  Him  to  pardon,  forgive, 
remit  sins,  or  justify  any  one,  but  is  necessarily  a  governmental 
matter  strictly  according  to  the  law,  and  therefore  moral,  while  to 
do  it  as  a  mere  Person  would  be  utterly,  absolutely  immoral.  Con- 
sequently, as  no  sinner  has  any  righteousness  of  his  own,  and  yet 
every  one  must  have  the  perfect  righteousness  required  by  the  law 
and  its  justice  relationally  in  order  to  recognition  and  acceptance 
by  God  as  in  harmony  with  Himself,  His  law  and  justice,  and  the 
holy  society  and  system,  there  is  no  other  possible  or  conceivable 
basis,  on  which  any  one  can   be  so  recognized  and  accepted   than 

(*)  For  the  sense  of  this  term,  see  the  il  places  of'ils  occmieuce  Ui  Rom.  <:j.j 
and  11,  Cor.  5:19;  Gal.  3:6;  James  3:2,  3. 


510  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

"the  righteousness  of  God,"  provided  by  Him  for  guilty  men — the 
absolutely  perfect  legal  obedience  of  Christ,  and  His  atonement 
made  in  it  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  which  He  executed  throughout 
for  them  as  their  Divinely  constituted  representative.  Pardon,  for- 
giveness, remission  all  mean  the  same  one  thing,  being,  as  we  have 
shown,  simply  different  translations  of  the  same  Greek  word;  and 
this  one  thing  is  setting  aside  the  penalty  of  the  law  deserved  by 
the  sins  of  its  recipient,  and  relates  to  the  atonement  only,  as  its 
basis;  but  it  is  always  only  a  part  of  justification,  separately  ex- 
pressed for  easier  common  apprehension.  But  justification  signifies 
the  whole  done  for  one  when  he  believes  in  Christ,  not  only  his 
exemption  from  the  penalty  for  his  sins,  which  only  puts  him  square 
with  the  retributive  demands  of  the  jiistice  of  the  law,  but  his  endow- 
ment/tfr^«x/<:fl;//y  with  the  perfect  righteousness  of  God,  or  of  Christ, 
his  representative,  in  place  of  the  perfect  obedience  to  the  law, 
always  owed  hy  him  as  ethical  justice  to  God  and  His  moral  society, 
but  never  rendered  by  him.  It  thus  puts  him  perfectly  square  with 
the  law  in  every  sense,  taking  him  from  under  it,  and  putting  him 
under  grace  for  the  sanctification  of  his  heart  and  character  and  for 
all  good.  What  else  is  or  can  this  be  than  what  Scripture  calls  im- 
puting, reckoning,  accounting  to  one?  Representation  and  this 
imputation  necessarily  go  together  and  imply  each  other,  so  that,  if 
either  of  them  is  true,  the  other  is,  if  either  false,  the  other  is.  If 
Rom.  5:12-19  teaches  the  truth  of  the  relations  of  Adam  and  of 
Christ  to  mankind,  the  representative  relation  of  Christ  to  them  is 
true,  and  so  must  the  imputation  of  His  perfect  righteousness  to 
believers  be.  Justice  to  Him  demands  this  to  them.  It  is  for  us, 
therefore,  to  take  Him  to  ourselves  by  faith  in  all  His  representative 
relations,  and  to  know  that  we  are  thus  perfectly  united  to  and  in 
Him,  "for  we  are  members  of  His  body,  of  His  flesh,  and  of  His 
bones,"  as  Paul  says  in  that  admirable  comparison  in  Eph.  5:22-32 
of  the  Divinely  designed  union  of  husbands  and  wives  with  the  far 
stricter  one  of  Christ  and  His  Church.  If  we  consider  what  our  Lord 
taught  of  the  union  between  Him  and  believers  (John  14:20,  25;  15: 
1-7;  17:21-23,  26),  and  what  Paul  taught,  besides  that  just  quoted, 
respectingit  (Rom.  12:5;  I.  Cor.  6:15;  12:11-27;  Eph.  1:23;  4:12-16; 
Col.  1:18,  24),  we  will  see  how  real  and  vitally  important  it  is.  If  it 
and  all  we  receive  from  Him  in  it  are  sequels  of  our  justification  by 
faith  which  puts  us  on  the  basis  of  Christ's  perfect  righteousness,  what 
else  is  justification  in  fact  than  the  imputation,  or  reckoning  to  us 
of  that  righteousness,  which  squares  us  with  the  law  and  its  jr.::;t:cc:  ? 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

The  dwarfing,  derogatory  effects  of  the  so-called  Moral  View  of 
the  Atonement. 

§287.    NO  ESSENTIALLY  NEW  THEOLOGY  CAN  EVER  SUPPLANT  THE 
EVANGELICAL. 

The  clamor  of  many  in  our  times  is  for  a  new  theology.  It  is 
asserted,  sometimes  at  least  in  no  remarkably  pious  way,  that  the 
old  is  outgrown,  effete,  doomed  to  total  rejection  by  all  intelligent, 
thinking  people,  and  deserves  submergence  only  in  the  everlasting 
Lethe,  to  which  the  callers  for  a  new  one  seek  to  consign  it.  But 
they  seek  in  vain;  for  it  is  neither  going  into  Lethe,  nor  to  be  sup- 
planted by  any  new  or  old  rival.  There  is  no  Sampson  to  wrench 
away  and  carry  off  its  everlasting  gates,  nor  to  pull  down  its  august 
temple;  for  its  defender  is  one  whose  more  than  Atlantean  shoulders 
not  only  sustain  the  weight  of  the  whole  heaven  of  holy  truth,  but 
of  the  monarchy  of  earth  and  the  universe.  The  old  theology  is 
the  system  of  evangelical  truth  and  fact  taught  in  the  Bible,  full- 
orbed,  exclusive  of  all  mere  speculative  subtractions,  additions,  sub- 
stitutions, or  notions  of  men.  It  is,  in  essential  constitutive  parts, 
the  system  found  in  the  Bible,  especially  since  the  Great  Reforma- 
tion, by  the  main  succession  of  its  candid  and  competent  readers 
and  interpreters,  embracing  the  most  capable  and  qualified  by 
natural  endowments  and  highest  scholarship  and  learning  of  our 
race,  whose  whole  lives  have  been  most  assiduously  devoted  to  its 
investigation,  and  who,  though  working  separately,  in  different 
places,  denominational  connections,  and  times,  and  not  seldom  dif- 
fering strenuously  on  minor  points  and  statements,  have  yet,  with 
wondrous  unanimity,  substantially  agreed  in  these  essentials.  We 
think  it  no  little  temerity  for  any  in  our  times  to  assume  that  this 
whole  illustrious  succession  down  centuries  have  misunderstood  and 
mistaken  its  teachings  as  to  any  of  these  essentials,  and  that  now  at 


512  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

length  they,  with  such  comparative  capability  as  they  should  know 
themselves  warranted  to  claim,  are  competent  to  dash  in  against  this 
unanimity  of  centuries,  to  shatter  and  rout  it  respecting  all  or  any 
of  these  radical  points,  and  to  establish  the  contrary.  We  think 
this  the  more,  when,  instead  of  bringing  forward  some  really  schol- 
arly exegesis  of  Scripture,  or  some  iron-tlad  argument  from  it,  from 
sound  reason,  or  from  the  nature  of  the  law  and  the  moral  system, 
they  mostly  distort  what  they  assail  with  caricature,  and  then  per- 
haps crying — "  I  don't  believe  it,  and  I  won't  believe  it" — endeavor 
to  strike  it  into  common  rejection.  But  how  does  their  believing  or 
not  believing  any  truth  affect  it  in  the  least  ?  Who  "  that  is  of  the 
truth  "  cares  whether  they  believe  it  or  not,  except  as  it  affects  the 
supreme  interests  of  their  souls  or  those  of  others?  Their  believ- 
ing it  or  not  does  not  make  a  hair  of  its  head  white  or  black,  even 
in  probability;  nor  does  it  make  any  contrary  notion  of  theirs  true 
or  even  probable.  It  is,  however,  of  buttressing  and  commending 
importance  to  any  essential  tenet,  that  the  most  resplendent  succes- 
sion through  centuries  of  the  most  competent  minds  of  our  race 
have  believed  it;  not  because  their  doing  so  adds  in  the  least  to 
its  truth  or  Scriptural  worthiness  of  belief,  but  because  their  unani- 
mity concerning  it  indorses  it  as  not  contrary  to,  nor  unworthy  of, 
but  accordant  with,  and  embraced  by,  the  minds,  the  reason,  the 
scholarship,  the  learning  of  such  a  matchless  procession  down  so 
many  generations.  All  the  modern  rejecters  of  any  such  tenet  and 
asserters  of  its  opposite  are  comparatively  of  slight  importance  in 
the  balance  against  this  mighty  unanimous  procession,  still  in  pro- 
gress and  marching  on  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  conquest  of 
mankind.  In  the  course  of  this  work,  we  have  abundantly  shown 
the  measureless  superiority  of  the  Old  or  Evangelical  Theology  over 
any  so-called  New  Theology  in  all  its  essential  constituents  and 
aspects — especially  over  the  miscalled  Moral  View  of  the  Atone- 
ment and  all  that  it  involves.  We  here,  in  concluding  this  work, 
recall  attention,  in  a  kind  of  summing  up,  to  what  we  think  we  have 
established  respecting  this  superiority.  The  advocates  of  that  view 
constantly  assume  that  their  conception  of  the  love  of  God  for 
mankind,  is  vastly  higher  and  richer  than  the  common  one  of  evan- 
gelical theologians  and  churches,  and  that  this  common  one  sets  it 
forth  dwarfed  and  obscured: 

"As  when  the  Sun,  new-risen, 
Looks  through  the  horizontal  misty  air, 
Shorn  of  its  beams;  or,  from  belimd  the  moon, 
In  dim  eclipse,  disastrous  twilight  shedg 
On  half  the  nations," 


THE  CONCEPTION'  OF  GOD'S  LOVE.  gij 

§  288.    THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOp's  LOVE,  IN   THE  SO-CALLED  MORAL 
VIEW,  ESSENTIALLY    UNTRUE. 

We  deny  this  assumption,  and  retort  it  against  their  own,  as  a 
very  poor  moon  substituted  for  the  glorious  sun.  The  love  it 
ascribes  to  God  is  void  of  justice,  righteousness,  holiness,  and  there- 
fore of  real  morality,  because,  according  to  it,  His  love  does  nol 
radically  consist  in  the  action  of  His  will  in  absolute  conformity  to 
the  everlasting  law  with  its  all-embracing,  all-binding  justice,  and  so 
to  the  moral  constitution  and  system  of  the  universal  society,  which 
must  include  Himself,  and  which  He  must  be  under  infinite  obliga- 
tion to  govern  according  to  the  law,  in  order  to  protect  and  secure 
the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  the  whole  as  far  as  possi- 
ble. His  love,  therefore,  is  regardless  of  the  law  with  its  justice,  ol 
the  moral  system  and  society,  of  all  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and 
concerns  of  all  in  that  society  as  assailed  and  injured  by  human  sin- 
ners, and  is  intrinsically  immoral — a  love  which,  if  He  is  a  moral 
being,  and  therefore  necessarily  in  and  over  that  society.  He  can 
have  no  possible  right  to  render  to  these  or  any  sinners,  as  it  is  at 
war  with  that  whole  society  and  the  moral  system  in  which  it  is  as 
certainly  as  all  the  globes  of  the  material  universe  are  in  a  physical 
one.  Such  love  is  merely  a  product  of  sympathetic  sensibility, 
affectional  emotion  towards  mankind  in  their  bad  condition,  a  con- 
dition consisting  wholly  in  the  mere  natural  consequences  of  their 
own  sin.  It  is  totally  indifferent  and  blind  to  their  sin,  except  as 
the  occasioning  cause  of  those  consequences  to  them  personally. 
It  makes  nothing  of  it  as  against  God  and  the  whole  moral  society 
under  Him,  as  utterly  unjust  to  Him  and  them,  both  by  robbing 
them  of  their  natural  and  moral  due  of  moral  love  and  all  its  effects 
from  them,  and  by  all  the  direct  wrong  and  resultant  injury  it  does 
to  them — and  it  makes  nothing  of  the  demand  of  justice,  both  as 
ethical  to  God  and  the  whole  moral  society  and  as  retributive  to 
them,  that  they  should  be  positively  punished  as  they  deserve;  and 
it  demands  that  God  and  all  moral  beings  cognizant  of  them  shall 
go  beyond  the  part  of  mere  non-resistants  to  them,  and  shall  act 
towards  them  all  the  detestable  flummery  of  entering  themselves 
sympathetically  into  all  their  bad  condition,  going  to  cost  for  them, 
and  turning  themselves  into  their  ridiculous,  sentimental,  apologists 
and  advocates.  In  itself,  this  kind  of  emotional,  naturally  affec- 
tional, sympathetic  love  has  no  moral  character,  good  or  bad, 
because  it  is  of  the  mere  sensibility,  in  view  of  the  bad  condition  ol 


514  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

its  objects  irrespective  of  its  cause,  and  not  of  the  will  in  conform- 
ity to  the  obligations  of  the  universal,  social-moral  law,  which  alone 
is  moral  love.  But,  when  this  love  is  set  in  opposition  to  the  really- 
moral,  and  God's  love  is  assumed  to  consist  in  it,  it  is  making  His, 
or  Him  in  it,  not  only  unmoral,  but  positively  immoral.  He  is  not 
all  sensibility,  nor  ruled  by  His  sensibility.  He  is  a  moral  nature, 
having  infinite  moral  reason,  with  the  eternal  law  in  and  from  it,  and 
conscience;  and  His  will  must  be  absolutely  ruled  in  all  His  moral 
action  by  this  nature.  His  emotions,  affections,  and  sympathies  are 
all  entirely  subordinate  to  His  moral  reason  and  conscience,  which 
affirm  and  guard  the  law  with  its  justice,  as  the  rule  of  action  for 
Himself  and  all  moral  natures.  They  are  not  His  love,  but  they 
move  Him  to  act  out  His  love  to  all  its  objects  in  all  ways  consist- 
ent with  His  infinite  justice  and  wisdom;  for  His  love  is  the  absolute 
conformity  of  His  will  to,  or  accordance  of  it  with  the  law  in  and 
from  His  eternal  moral  reason  or  nature.  The  matter  required  by 
the  law — that  is,  by  the  moral  reason  or  nature  which  is,  or  contains 
and  issues  it,  is  pure  and  perfect  moral  love  to  all  moral  beings  who 
have  not  excluded  themselves  from  among  its  objects;  and  the  end 
of  this  love  is  the  greatest  possible  real  good  of  its  objects  accord- 
ing to  their  rights  and  dues,  unless  forfeited,  their  characters,  their 
relations,  and  their  deserts.  It  therefore  involves,  from  the  whole 
nature  of  the  case,  corresponding  emotions  towards  them,  whether 
of  complacency,  affection,  sympathy,  pity,  indignation,  or  anger,  as 
it  also  does  corresponding  intellectual  action;  but  its  whole  moral 
essence  is  perfect  good-will  to  all  moral  beings  as  stated,  and  so  it 
is  necessarily  concrete  and  social.  It  is  not,  nor  can  it  possibly  be, 
the  essence,  being,  nature,  mind,  person  of  any  being,  God  or  crea- 
ture; and  to  made  God's  Essential  Being  and  His  love  identical  is, 
to  us,  mere  jumbling  indiscrimination  and  absurdity.*  By  the  propo- 
sition, "God  is  love,"  the  Apostle  can  mean  nothing  else  than  that 
God's  entire  moral  activity,  disposition,  character  is  love,  is  abso- 
lutely righteous  good-will  with  all  its  correlated  emotions  according 
to  what  is  exactly  true  of  its  several  objects. f  As  this  love  is  per- 
fectly according  to  and  consistent  with  justice,  which  is  the  bond  of 
the  universal  moral  society,  it  is  not  confined  to  mankind  only,  but 
extends  alike  to  all  moral  beings.    We  thus  have  the  true  conception 

(*)  Against  Biaune's  comment  on  I.  John  4:8,  in  liis  Comm.  on  the  Epistle, 
Lange's  series,  the  authorities  he  adduces,  the  added  note  of  his  translator,  and 
Alford's  specimen  of  reasoning  quoted  by  hina. 

(t)  Ps.  105:4,  5. 


THE  SO-CALLED  MORAL  LAW.  515 

of  God's  love;  and,  in  contrast  with  the  "  false  forged  "  one  above — 

"Nor  sense  to  ecstacy  was  ne'er  so  thralled, 
But  it  reserved  some  quality  of  choice 
To  serve  in  such  a  difterence." 

It  is  glorious  beauty  in  contrast  with  consummate  moral  deformity. 
If  the  former  is  true,  there  can  be  no  moral  system;  if  the  latter  is 
true,  it  is  as  certain  that  there  is  one,  universal,  and  eternal,  as  that 
there  is  one  of  the  material  universe. 


§  289.    FARTHER    SHOWING    THAT  THIS  VIEW  DWARFS  AND  DEPRECIATES 
IT  TOWARDS  MANKIND. 

There  is  another  way  to  see  how  this  view  depreciates  the  love 
of  God,  as  it  relates  to  mankind.  The  love  of  any  being  is  only 
known  by  others  as  it  is  manifested;  and  the  measure  of  it  in  the 
manifestation  is  in  exact  proportion  to  the  obstacles  to  be  overcome 
in  making  it,  and  the  consequent  degrees  of  self-denial  and  self- 
sacrifice  it  costs  to  make  it.  According  to  this  view,  there  were  no 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  God's  making  His,  arising  from  the  demands 
of  justice,  both  as  ethical  to  Himself  and  the  universal  and  eternal 
society,  and  as  retributive  against  mankind  as  sinners,  or  from  His 
eternal  law  and  government,  for  Him  to  overcome;  nor,  since  His 
anger  and  wrath  against  them  were  merely  emotional  and  personal 
to  Himself,  could  these  hinder  His  forgiving  and  favoring  them,  if 
they  would  only  repent;  nor,  if  all  love  is  intrinsically  vicarious,  as 
it  is  according  to  this  view,  could  Hrs  angry  emotions  against  them 
bar  Him  from  acting  it  towards  them  to  any  degree  He  thought 
best,  to  bring  them  to  repentance.  The  only  great  obstacle  in  His 
way,  then,  was  the  subjective  state  of  sinners.  But  if  the  other 
obstacles  which  we  have  mentioned  existed  in  addition  to  this,  this 
was  really  the  least  of  them  all;  and  the  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice 
of  both  the  Father  and  the  Son  for  overcoming  this,  if  possibly  sup- 
posable  consistently  with  Scripture  concerning  their  purpose,  which 
they  absolutely  are  not,  w'ould  have  been  an  incomparably  inferior 
inanifestatio)!  of  love  for  men,  than  if  they  were  to  overcome  those 
others.  If  asked — hotv  inferior,  when  they  were  the  same  in  either 
case?  we  answer  that  they  could  not  be  the  same  in  either  case. 
For,  in  the  hitter  case,  Christ  denied  and  sacrificed  Himself  only  as 
a  martyr  and  to  produce  a  kind  of  scenic  impression  on  those  cog- 
nizant of  what  He  acted  and  suffered;  and  the  Father  only  sent  Him 
to  act  and  suffer  thus  to  produce  it.  His  sufferings  were  such  only 
as  men  could  inflict  and  cause;  and  the  dread  and  terror  He  ex- 


5i6  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

pressed  and  showed  from  seeing  the  final  ones  at  hand*  are  utterly 
unaccountable,  if  they  were  only  such  and  for  that  purpose,  if  He 
was  not  one  of  the  greatest  cowards  among  martyrs  or  men.  He 
was  infinitely  far  from  a  coward;  and  His  sufferings  incomparably 
greater  than  those  of  any  martyr  or  mere  man  from  the  hands  of 
men.  They  were  from  His  being  the  representative  substitute  of 
human  sinners  as  such,  not  to  produce  any  impression  whatever  on 
tJiein,  but  0)1  God  only  and  His  relations  to  them — from  His  suffering 
in  their  stead  to  expiate  their  sins  and  thus  to  propitiate  God  to 
them — from  the  chastisement  of  their  peace  being  on  Him — from 
His  "bearing  their  sins" — from  "the  iniquities  of  all  being  laid  on 
Him" — from  His  being  "stricken  for  their  transgression" — from 
His  "making  His  soul  an  offering  for  sin,"  an  "offering  and  a  sac- 
rifice to  God  for  them" — from  "the  Father's  not  sparing,  but  deliv- 
ering Him  up  for  us  all,  for  our  trespasses" — from  His  being  made 
a  curse  for  us,  to  redeem  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law" — from  "the 
Father's  bruising  and  putting  Him  to  grief,"  and  subjecting  Him  to 
all  He  endured,  not  to  produce  any  impression  on  men,  but  for 
their  trespasses  against  Himself,  that  He  might  consistently,  justly, 
righteously  save  them  from  suffering  the  retributive  punishment 
which  they  deserve  and  justice  demands,  if  they  comply  with  the 
prescribed  conditions.  Hence  the  trouble,  amazement,  agony  of 
our  Lord's  soul,  immeasurably  surpassing  all  His  bodily  sufferings 
until  His  death;  for  He  doubtless  suffered  all  that  such  a  person 
could  suffer,  which  He  certainly  did  not  and  could  not,  if  only  a 
martyr.  Hence,  too,  the  infinite  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  of  the 
Father  in  giving,  delivering  up,  not  sparing  His  own  only-begotten 
Son  to  endure  all  this  appalling  suffering.  Thus  each  acted  His 
part  according  to  the  arrangement  of  the  Godhead  in  the  plan  of 
redemption;  and  thus  each,  in  absolute  voluntariness,  manifested 
His  love  for  mankind,  the  world,  in  and  ruined  by  sin.  Who,  then, 
that  has  eyes,  can  fail  to  see  that  the  so-called  Moral  View  immeas- 
urably reduces  and  dwarfs  the  manifestation  and  demonstration  of 
the  greatness  of  the  love  of  each,  of  God,  for  mankind,  sinking  it  to 
a  comparative  shadow?  It  is  perfectly  futile  to  attempt  to  bridge 
over  the  vast  chasm  of  difference  between  them  by  substituting 
words  for  things  in  order  to  magnify  the  little — to  attempt  to  aggran- 
dize this  comparative  dwarf  into  the  whole  of  God's  manifested  love 
for  man  by  clothing  it  with  such  rhetorical  robes  as  the  following, 

(*)  John   12:27;  13:21;  Luke   12:50;  Mat.  26:38,  39,  42,  44;  Mark   14:33-36; 
Luke  22:42-44;  Heb.  6:7. 


The  conception  of  god's  love.  517 

as  one  lately  gone  did  in  a  single  sermon,  in  which  He  contemned 
the  one  only  atonement — "the  nature  of  God,"  "the  nature  of  His 
heart,"  "His  majestic  loving  and  forgiving  nature,"  "His  heart- 
power,"  "  His  love-power,"  "  the  power  of  His  nature,"  "  His  loving, 
glowing  heart,"  and  other  like  expressions,  along  with  the  assertion, 
that  "God  never  had  anything  against  sinners."  A  molehill  cannot 
be  made  a  mountain  in  any  such  way. 

§  290.    THIS  EFFECT  ON  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD'S  LOVE  FOR  MAN  MORE 
MANIFEST  FROM  ITS  LIKE  EFFECTS  ON  THAT  OF  OTHER  TRUTHS. 

I.  On  the  conception  of  the  law.  By  denying  its  positive, 
retributory  penalty,  and  making  the  mere  natural  consequences  of 
violating  it  its  only  penalty,  it  denies  that  justice  belongs  to  its 
nature.  It  denies  that  it  does  as  ethical,  which  binds  all  to  each 
other  and  to  God,  and  God  to  them,  to  render  its  matter  of  pure 
moral  love  in  constant  reciprocity,  as  due  to  and  owed  by  each  by 
virtue  of  their  common  moral  nature;  and  it  denies  that  it  does  as 
retributive,  which  demands  that  each  shall  be  rewarded  or  punished 
as  he  deserves.  It  therefore  denies  the  social-moral  nature  of  the 
law,  because  then  its  matter  of  moral  love  is  not  mutually  due  nor 
owed\)j  ethical  justice,  and  so  impliedly  that  it  is  injustice  or  wrong 
to  any  or  all  of  them  to  withhold  it  and  to  exercise  only  its  opposite 
of  selfishness  against  them,  and  that  this  deserves  any  penalty. 
Hence,  whether  any  one  renders  love  to  or  selfishness  against  others 
or  God  is  purely  his  own  concern.  He  has  perfect  liberty  to  do 
either;  and,  if  he  does  only  the  latter,  no  other  one,  God  or  creature, 
has  any  right  or  reason  to  complain,  or  to  hurt  him  for  it.  The 
precept  of  the  law — "Thou  shalt  love"  is  only  advice;  and  lays  no 
obligation  upon  him.  How  he  sins,  if  he  does  not  take  it,  is  more 
than  we  can  see;  for,  if  the  law  has  no  intrinsic  quality  of  justice, 
how  can  God  have  any  right  to  invent  justice,  and  to  impose  it  upon 
him  by  His  mere  arbitrary  will,  and  thus  to  constitute  an  arbitrary 
law  and  government;  and,  if  He  did,  what  obligation  could  it  create, 
or  what  except  mere  fear  of  Him  as  omnipotent?  No;  his  only 
concern  with  it  is  to  decide  whether  it  is  best  for  him  to  act  accord- 
ing to  the  advice  or  not  in  view  of  the  mere  natural  consequences, 
as  he  can  foresee  them,  of  each  kind  of  action.  This  is  all  there  is 
of  the  law  according  to  this  view;  and  if  it  is  made  thus  insignificant 
and  contemptible  by  it  whose  fault  is  it?  The  notion  that  the  nat- 
ural consequences  of  moral  action  are  its  retributions  can  come  to 
nothing  else.     But  the  truth  concerning  the  law  is,  that  God  has 


Si8  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

declared  it  both  by  creating  moral  natures  with  it  in  them,  and  by- 
inserting  it  in  His  inspired  revelation;  and  He  has  declared  its 
eternal  positive  retributions  with  it.  It  is  as  really  a  manifestation 
of  His  love  for  mankind  as  His  measure  of  redemption  is,  and  is  as 
unchangeably  such. 

2.  This  view,  of  course,  makes  a  moral  government  of  God  im- 
possible. For,  if  justice  is  not  an  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law,  and 
it  consequently  is  not  social,  but  what  we  have  seen;  and  if  the 
natural  consequences  of  sin  are  its  only  punishment,  there  is  no 
rational  sense  in  which  He  can  have  a  moral  government  and  be  a 
Moral  Governor.  What  function  of  a  Governor  or  Ruler  does  or 
can  He  fulfill?  None;  but  His  rulership  would,  like  Angelo's  in  the 
play,  be  "the  very  cipher  of  a  function 

"To  fine  the  faults,  whose  fine  stands  in  record, 
And  let  go  by  the  actor." 

If  the  law  has  no  positive  sanctions.  He  can  administer  none,  and  is 
reduced  to  the  quiescent  state  of  the  lazy  god  of  Epicurus — a  state 
in  which,  if  He  is  a  moral  being,  and  so  necessarily  in  and  over  the 
universal  moral  society,  He  can  have  no  possible  right  to  be.  He 
could  only  sit  still,  look  on,  and  see  the  natural  machines,  working 
out  all  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  so-called  moral  action.  How 
could  these  automatic  mills,  grinding  out  their  natural  grists,  be  in 
any  sense  a  government  ?  and  what  glimmer  of  a  manifestation  of 
love  could  there  be  in  Him  for  the  mills  in  constructing  them  such, 
and  then  indifferently  watching  their  grinding  operations?  Could 
the  mills  pray  to  Him  with  the  least  hope  for  an  answer? 

3.  This  view  takes  away  all  measure  of  God's  estimation  of  the 
value  and  importance  of  obedience  and  of  the  evil  and  pernicious 
nature  of  sin.  For,  it  is  plainly  impossible  that  His  estimation  of 
either  can  be  greater  than  the  law  with  its  automatic  sanctions  rep- 
resents. If  the  law  has  no  positive  sanctions  administered  by  God, 
the  only  legitimate  inference  is,  that  He  does  not  care  enough  for 
obedience,  and  is  not  disturbed  enough  by  sin  of  whatever  degree, 
to  add  any  such  sanctions  to  the  mechanical,  consequential  grind- 
ings  out  of  rewards  and  punishments,  and  so  to  augment  the  motives 
to  obedience  and  against  sin,  and  show  that  He  does  not  regard 
them  and  their  actors  as  on  par  by  the  proof  of  His  positive  action, 
what  shadow  of  love,  then,  can  be  ascribed  to  Him  for  them?  What 
care  or  concern?  His  manifested  estimate  of  obedience  and  of  sin 
is  His  manifested  estimate  of  the  well-being  and  of  the  ill-being 
consequential  from   them;  and  how  can  He  make  any  such   mani- 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  THIS  VIEW.  519 

festation,  if  He  adds  and  administers  no  positive  sanctions  of  reward 
and  punishment,  but  leaves  all  to  mere  natural  consequences  ?  To 
talk  of  His  being  a  God  of  love  on  this  theory  is  simply  ridiculous. 

§  291.    THE    EFFECTS    OF    THIS    VIEW  ON    THE    ESSENTIAL    TRUTHS    AND 
FACTS  EMBRACED  IN  THE  REDEMPTIVE  MEASURE. 

1.  It  denies  God's  justice,  leaving  not  a  rack  of  it  behind.  How 
can  He  be  just,  if,  having  created  moral  beings  with  the  same  social- 
moral  law  in  and  from  their  natures  which  is  in  and  from  His  own, 
and  so  in  a  moral  society  and  system  with  Himself,  of  which  He  is 
necessarily  Head  and  Ruler,  He  nevertheless  has  not  annexed  to  it 
and  does  not  administer  any  positive  retributive  sanctions  of  reward 
for  obedience  and  punishment  for  disobedience,  as  it,  the  moral  sys- 
tem it  constitutes,  the  affirmations  of  moral  reason  and  conscience, 
and  the  rights,  dues,  interests,  and  concerns  of  the  universal  moral 
society  with  one  voice  demand,  and  so  has  no  moral  government? 
He  merely  sits  idly,  leaving  the  automatic  mills  to  grind  their  grists 
of  consequences  which  they  do  not  do  according  to  any  rule  of 
justice,  as  we  have  before  shown.  Yet  the  holders  of  this  view, 
while  denying  justice  to  be  an  intrinsic  quality  of  God's  law  and 
nature,  with  characteristic  inconsistency  unconsciously  assume  that 
He  is  somehow  bound  by  its  demands,  in  declaring,  as  they  often 
do,  that,  if  He  should  punish  sinners,  as  evangelical  believers  hold 
He  must  and  will  incorrigible  ones.  He  would  be  unjust.  As  if  there 
could  be  injustice  and  He  commit  it,  if  justice  is  not  an  intrinsic 
quality  of  His  nature!  If  justice  is  simply  a  thing  of  His  will,  as 
mercy  is,  as  advocates  of  this  view  assert,  there  can  be  no  kind  of 
obligation  on  Him  ever  to  act  it  or  not  to  act  the  opposite;  so  that 
He  can  neither  act  justly  nor  unjustly,  rightly  nor  wrongly,  because 
He  has  no  standard  to  act  by.  What  will  can  make,  it  can  unmake, 
or  never  make;  and  there  is  no  moral  action  in  either  case.  But, 
if  justice  is  a  quality  of  God's  eternal  nature,  He  has  no  option 
about  complying  with  its  demands,  more  than  about  being  benev- 
olent, but  must  everlastingly  execute  them,  both  ethically  and  retrib- 
utively. 

2.  How  does  this  view  affect  the  mercy  of  God?  According  to 
the  evangelical  doctrine,  His  mercy,  as  a  disposition,  was  the  great 
moving  cause  in  Him  for  originating  and  executing  the  entire 
redemptive  plan.  Both  the  origination  and  the  execution  of  this 
plan  were  entirely  of  His  own  will,  free  from  the  least  obligation  of 
justice  to  mankind,  as  they  had  no  rights  whatever  to  make  any  such 


$20  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  OM  THE  ATONEMEN'T. 

obligation  upon  Him  to  do  them  for  them.  His  purpose  in  devis- 
ing tlie  measure  was  not  to  set  aside  or  violate  justice  or  any  of  its 
demands  in  the  least  degree,  but  to  meet  it  perfectly  by  accomplish- 
ing its  end,  which  is  that  of  the  eternal  law.  This  could  only  be 
doneby  the  incarnation,  perfect  obedience,  and  atoning  sufferings 
and  d«ath  of  our  Lord.  It  was  pure  mercy  only  that  moved  the 
Father  to  give  Him  to  become,  do,  and  suffer  all  He  did — that 
moved  the  Son  to  His  execution  of  the  whole — and  that  moved  the 
Holy. Spirit  to  all  done  by  Him.  Thus  it  was  pure  mercy  only  that 
moved  each  Person  of  the  Triune  Godhead  to  all  the  infinite  self- 
denial  and  self-sacrifice  of  executing  the  part  He  did,  according  to 
the  everlasting  arrangement  between  them,  of  the  stupendous  meas- 
ure for  the  salvation  of  lost  men;  and  it  was  and  is  in  its  total  exer- 
cise the  antithesis  oi  justice  as  retributively  pimitive,  while  it  was 
perfectly  fulfilling  its  demands  and  ends  as  ethical.  Well  may  Scrip- 
ture speak  of  its  riches — call  it  rich,  great,  abundant,  tender;  and 
magnify  it  by  strongest  expressions,  as  that  by  which  sinners  are 
saved  from  wrath,  or  punitive  justice,  and  obtain  the  whole  of  sal- 
vation. But  it  is  such  only  as  the  prime  and  mighty  mover  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  to  all  their  executions  to  res- 
cue men  from  eternal  perdition  and  to  raise  them  to  glory.  But, 
according  to  this  so-called  Moral  View,  mercy  is  no  antithesis  at  all 
of  punitive  justice  against  human  sinners,  and  no  mover  of  Godhead 
to  fulfill  the  demands  of  ethical  justice  to  the  universal  and  eternal 
moral  society  with  God  in  it,  as  necessary  to  render  the  salvation 
of  any  of  those  sinners  from  punitive  justice  consistent.  It  is  a 
mere  sympathetic  impulsion  of  God's  interest  in  and  concern  for 
them  alone,  as  if  entirely  separate  from  that  society,  and  it  from 
them — from  any  connection  with  it  in  a  moral  system — from  any 
demands  of  the  universal  law  and  its  justice  against  them,  or  of 
God's  government  over  them,  and  as  if  they  had  no  guilt,  no  desert 
whatever  of  punishment  from  Him  as  its  administrator;  so  that  this 
impulsion  alone,  thus  confined  towards  them,  as  if  unfortunates  in  a 
bad  condition  by  the  natural  consequences  of  their  conduct  (for 
how  can  it  be  called  sin?),  urged  Him,  or  Christ  to  go  through  all 
He  did  simply  as  a  kijid  of  show-manifestation  to  them,  to  affect  their 
feelings,  and  thus  to  win  them  from  their  self-injuring  conduct,  and 
so  to  stop  its  sorrowful  stream  of  natural  consequences  to  theva.  per- 
sonally/ Such  is  the  paltry  stuff  of  this  falsely  called  moral  view — 
falsely  called,  because  there  is  not  a  glimmer  of  real  moral  quality  in 
it.    Its  whole  fictitious  essence  is  utterly  anti-moral,  both  in  itself  and 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  THIS  VIEW,  521 

in  what  it  opposes  and  seeks  to  supplant.  Like  the  poodle  of  Faust, 
it  is  Mephistopheles  in  disguise,  silken-coated,  but  a  deceiver  and 
tempter  to  ruin.  It  rejects  the  whole  teaching  of  Scripture  as  to 
the  design  of  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ,  as  to  their  direct 
end  which  was  not  in  men  at  all,  but  in  God,  and  as  to  the  great- 
ness, grandeur,  and  glory  of  the  love,  the  absolutely  moral  love  of 
God,  Father,  and  Son  in  them,  and  substitutes  for  the  inconceivably 
great  and  glorious  whole  rejected,  what? — its  own  sentimental,  anti- 
moral  self!  It  is  like  the  bramble  in  Jotham's  parable  asking  all  the 
trees  to  put  trust  in  its  shadow. 

3.  Grace,  the  illustrious  daughter  of  mercy,  fares  no  better  at 
the  hands  of  this  hostile  view.  Grace  is  entirely  concerned  with 
mankind  as  sinners,  deserving  no  favor  from  God,  but  retributive 
punishment  only  for  their  sins.  It  is  God's  merciful  love  for  them 
as  moral  natures  specially  exercised  towards  them  in  opposition  to 
their  deserts  and  the  demands  of  retributive  justice  against  them. 
All  the  gifts  and  favors  ever  bestowed  upon  them  are  its  largess  to 
them — none  of  them  ever  deserved.  With  what  opulence  of  expres- 
sion is  it  described  in  Scripture.  God's  bestowments  upon  men  in 
and  through  the  redemptive  measure  are  not  only  "  the  riches,"  but 
"the  exceeding  riches  of  His  grace."  They  embraced  the  Father's 
gift  of  the  Son,  the  Son's  of  Himself,  and  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  by 
them  both;  and  the  entire  part  performed  by  each  of  them.  They 
embraced  the  Father's  forgiveness  of  sins  and  the  complete  justifi- 
cation of  all  that  believe;  His  adoption  of  them  as  His  heirs  and 
co-heirs  with  Christ;  their  sanctification  by  the  Spirit;  their  resur- 
rection in  the  likeness  of  Christ;  and  all  their  exaltation  and  glory 
forever.  But,  according  to  this  view,  neither  did  the  Father  give 
His  Son,  nor  the  Son  Himself,  to  meet  any  demand  of  retributive 
justice  for  the  punishment  of  sinners,  and  thus  to  open  a  way  for  the 
access  of  grace  to  them,  because  they  neither  deserved  any  inflicted 
punishment,  nor  was  there  any  demand  of  justice  for  it.  Hence, 
the  gift  of  the  Son  by  the  Father  and  of  Himself  by  the  Son  were 
solely  to  make  an  hnpression  on  thetn  by  a  show-tnanifestation  of  love 
for  them  to  win  them  from  sin  to  love  the  manifesters  in  return. 
What  a  vast  shrinkage  and  havoc  of  grace  does  this  involve  !  Con- 
sider the  case.  i.  If  sin  deserves  no  inflicted  punishment  from 
God,  and  there  was  no  demand  of  justice  in  Him  for  its  infliction 
on  sinners  to  be  met  in  order  to  allow  access  of  grace  to  them, 
how  can  it  approach  equality  of  greatness  and  richness  with  what  it 
must  be,  if  He  must  Himself  meet  that  demand  against  them  before 


522  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

He  could  directly  exercise  it  to  them  ?  especially,  if  vastly  greater 
self-denial,  self-sacrifice  and  suffering  were  necessary  in  this  case,  as 
we  have  shown  these  must  have  been?  2.  \i  sin  has  no  penalty,  and 
its  natural  consequences  are  the  sinner's  only  evil  from  it,  there  can  be 
no  such  thing  as  pardon,  forgii'eness,  remission  of  sins,  or  as  justifica- 
tion, and  no  grace  of  God  in  acting  these;  for  these  consequences 
cannot  be  removed  by  these  Divine  acts,  but  by  regeneration  and  sancti- 
fication  of  the  Spirit  only.  Thus  the  whole  grace  of  God  to  human 
sinners,  aside  from  what  may  be  in  the  assumed  show-manifestation, 
is  abolished  and  destroyed  by  this  ravaging  view,  which  is  none  at 
all  of  the  atonement  or  of  Scripture;  and,  as  His  mercy  and  grace 
are  merely  modifications  of  His  love  towards  human  sinners,  which 
is  only  a  part  of  it  towards  all  moral  beings  in  the  universal  and 
eternal  moral  society  and  system,  what  an  appalling  reduction  and 
diminution  of  its  measureless  immensity  must  the  belief  of  this  view 
cause  in  the  estimation  of  it  of  all  who  adopt  it.  Nor  this  only, 
but,  as  if  by  some  dire  magic,  all  the  shapes  immense  of  the  Divine 
truths  and  facts  of  Christianity,  which  are  not  exterminated  outright 
by  this  noxious  view,  are  shrunk  to  smallest  dwarfs,  like  the  host  oi 
fallen  angels,  as  Milton  tells,  when  crowded  into  Pandemonium;  and, 
with  their  diminution,  their  very  essence  is  metamorphosed  and  per- 
verted. 

§  292.    HOW  THIS  VIEW  AFFECTS    MOTIVES    AGAINST  SIX  AND  TO  OBEDI- 
ENCE  TO  REPENTANCE  AND   FAITH. 

All  these  motives,  of  course,  suffer  equally  at  the  hands  of  this 
invented  view.  Some  of  the  most  weighty,  it  exterminates  at  sight 
as  Herod  slew  the  innocents  of  Bethlehem;  and  all  the  remainder  of 
them  shrink  to  puniness  under  its  accepted  presence.  All  those  from 
justice  and  positive  retributions  from  God,  causing  fear,  it  extin- 
guishes at  once.  Whatever  sin,  vice,  or  crime  men  may  commit, 
however  enormous,  it  says  to  them — ''God  will  inflict  no  punishment 
upon  you  for  it;  and  to  fear  it  is  to  wrong  Him.  There  is  no  puni- 
tive justice  in  Him  to  inflict  its  scourge  upon  you  hereafter  according 
to  your  deserts.  Far  be  that  from  Him,  the  God  of  love,  your 
Father,  though  universal  conscience  should  roar  its  appalling  cry 
for  it  against  you.  He  will  never  hurt  any  one,  but  will  forever 
enter  Himself  into  all  your  bad  condition  and  woes  from  the  natural 
consequences  of  all  your  sins,  vices,  or  crimes,  whatever  their  grade. 
Not  only  to  common  sinners,  but  to  the  stalwarts  of  them,  to  the 
deepest-dyed   murderers,   the   most    enormously  vicious,   the   most 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  THIS  VIEW.  523 

fiendish  monsters  of  Adam's  race,  I  have  this  one  lullaby  of  love  to 
sing — '  Cheer  up,  dear  souls,  one  and  all,  you  have  no  punitive  retribu- 
tion from  God  to  fear,  whatever  you  may  be  or  do.  Your  con- 
sciences, with  their  sense  of  guilt,  and  even  gnawing  remorse  and 
prophecies  of  pain,  are  liars;  and,  if  you  can  stand  thevi,  you  may 
persist  in  your  careers  of  sin  and  wickedness  as  long  as  you  list  in 
this  life,  fearless  of  anything  but  the  natural  consequences  of  your 
course  and  deeds  as  far  as  God  is  concerned,  and  sure  of  His  sym- 
pathy with  you  in  those  consequences,  the  more  the  worse  they  are, 
although  He  constituted  you  purposely  to  have  them  as  retributions, 
if  you  should  live  in  sin  and  enormity.  But  He  has  made  a  show- 
manifestation  to  those  cognizant  of  it  of  His  love  for  them,  to  draw 
them  from  evil  lives  to  love  and  please  Him;  and,  if  you  yield  to 
this  attraction,  abandoning  sin  at  any  time,  it  will  end  or  mitigate 
the  bad  retributive  consequences  of  your  past,  prevent  such  in 
future,  and  cause  good  new  ones.  Some  even  say,  that,  if  you  do 
not  yield  to  it  in  this  life,  He  will  extend  your  probationary  time 
to  do  so  without  end,  so  that  you  may  do  it,  if  you  will,  at  any  time 
in  the  endless  future;  and  that,  as  is  fair  and  just,  He  equally  extends 
that  time  to  all  who  have  not  heard  of  Him,  that  they  may  yield  to 
Him  in  some  age  to  come.  It  is  iiiedUxvai;  it  is  Calvanistic;  it  is 
traditional;  it  is  illiberal  to  believe  the  old  notions  of  justice,  atone- 
ment, etc.  You  need  not,  therefore,  be  in  any  hurry  to  repent,  but 
may  take  your  time,  and  all  will  be  well  at  last.'"  So  essentially 
runs  this  invented  lullaby  of  balderdash,  this  worse  than  fabled  Siren 
song  of  old,  were  it  true.  What  does  it  with  the  motives  to  repent 
and  believe  in  Christ,  so  enshrined  in  the  offers  of  forgiveness,  remis- 
sion of  sins  and  justification  on  condition  of  acting  them?  By 
making  these  Divine  acts  of  grace  impossible,  it  sweeps  the  motives 
from  the  offer  of  them  out  of  existence,  because  these  acts  of  grace 
are  impossible  on  the  merely  natural-consequence  theory.  What 
other  motives  then  remain?  As  we  have  shown  in  a  former  place, 
those  from  those  consequences  of  sin,  as  experienced,  are  too  feeble 
to  deter  from  sin,  and,  besides,  have  no  adaptation  or  tendency  to 
bring  any  one  to  love  God  or  man.  Equally  ineffectual  are  those 
from  the  example  of  Christ  in  itself,  not  a  mortal,  we  believe,  having 
ever  been  converted  by  them.  As  to  those  from  the  show-manifes- 
tation of  the  view,  which  was  made,  not  to  save  men  from  deserved 
punishment  and  to  be  a  ground  for  their  forgiveness  and  justification, 
but  solely  for  an  impression  on  theui  of  the  love  of  God  for  them, 
though  sinners,  by  which  to  win  them  from  sin  and  to  love  and  obey 


524  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

Him  in  return — a  manifestation  so  utterly  lacking  any  high,  univer- 
sal moral  scope  and  aim,  so  totally  divorced  from  any  relation  to 
justice,  to  the  universal  law,  and  to  the  moral  system  and  govern- 
ment of  God — so  perfectly  incapable  of  harmonizing  with  the  teach- 
ings of  Scripture  concerning  the  stupendous  scope  of  aim  and  effect 
of  the  one  which  God  actually  made,  how  can  they  at  all  compare 
in  magnitude,  weight  and  potency  to  affect  human  souls  in  sin,  with 
those  of  the  real  one?  How  can  they,  so  dwarfed  or  paralytic. 
ever  confront  and  conquer  the  depravity  of  the  world  ?  The  mot- 
toes on  the  banner  borne  aloft  by  the  adherents  of  this  view  are 
chiefly  these — "  No  positive  punishment  from  the  God  of  love.  No 
atonement  to  Him  to  save  men  from  it.  The  natural  consequences 
of  sin  its  only  retributions.  God  ever  entering  Himself  into  the  bad 
condition  of  sinners  from  the  natural  consequences  of  their  sins  and 
going  to  cost  for  them.  Their  probation  indefinitely  extended  after 
this  life."  On  some  are  added — "  No  hell.  No  eternal  punishment, 
which  is  only  another  name  for  eternal  torture  or  torment,  which 
we  call  it  to  make  it  odious.  God  bound  to  save  all."  The  richest 
rhetoric  of  human  tongues  cannot,  by  the  grandest  regimentals  in 
which  it  can  clothe  them,  make  conquering  champions  of  the 
motives  furnished  by  these  mottoes  or  this  view,  nor  hide  their  in- 
herent impotence  to  subdue  the  strength  of  man's  selfishness,  and 
bring  him  to  the  true  submission  to  God  of  faith,  and  to  its  conse- 
quences of  love  and  obedience.  But  the  truth  is,  that  neither  Christ 
HimscIJ,  nor  His  whole  manifestation  of  love,  obedience,  and  atone- 
ment, ever  regenerated  a  single  sinner.  This  is  done  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  only  with  the  truth  as  instrument.  He  is  sent  by  the  Father 
and  the  Son  on  the  basis  of  the  atonement  of  Christ  to  God  for  the 
sins  of  the  world;  and  He  alone  brings  any  of  mankind  to  accept 
the  great  salvation  offered  to  all  on  the  same  basis. 

§  293.    THIS  VIEW  LIMITS  THE  OBJECTS   OF  PRAYER  AND  TIIANKSGIVING. 

We  notice  only  one  example  more,  though  others  might  be 
added,  of  the  bad  effects  of  this  view — its  limitation  of  the  objects 
of  prayer  and  thanksgiving.  No  intelligent  person,  holding  it,  can 
|)ray  for  the  pardon,  forgiveness,  remission  of  his  sins,  or  for  justi- 
fication for  himself  or  others,  since,  according  to  it,  no  such  thing 
is  possible  and  the  terms  are  totally  meaningless.  They  can  only 
mean,  as  we  have  shown,  the  freeing  of  the  object  or  objects  of 
them,  by  a  gracious  act  of  God,  from  liability  to  the  retributive  pen- 
alty for  the  sin  of  which  the  one  or  more  are  guilty.     While  justifica- 


THE  PRECEDIXG  SHOWINGS.  525 

tion  signifies  more  than  this,  it  always  includes  it  as  an  essential  of 
its  meaning.  It  is  folly,  therefore,  to  say  that  any  of  these  terms 
can  mean  freeing  them  from  the  natural  consequences  of  sin,  be- 
cause they  follow  it  by  a  necessity  of  nature.  Only  liability  to 
positive  penalty  can  be  set  aside  by  the  Divine  act  expressed  by 
either  of  these  terras.  But,  if  there  is  no  such  penalty  and  no  lia- 
bility to  it  from  the  hand  of  God,  how  can  sinners  be  freed  from  it? 
and  what  but  pure  nonsense  is  it  to  ask  Him  to  pardon,  forgive, 
remit  the  sins  of,  or  justify  one's  self,  or  any  others?  If,  then,  be- 
lievers in  this  invented  view  would  not  wantonly  trifle  with  God, 
when  their  consciences  condemn  them  for  their  sins,  instead  ot 
praying  to  God  to  exercise  m-ercy  to  them  in  the  act  signified  by  all 
these  terms,  they  must  positively  refuse  to  do  it,  and  only  ask  Him 
to  righteous  them — that  is,  to  sanctify  or  purify  them  !  Of  course, 
they  can  never  thank  Him  for  having  done  the  mercy  of  this  four- 
named  act,  so  much  enjoined  and  spoken  of  in  all  Scripture,  and  in 
the  New  Testament  by  our  Lord,  His  Apostles  and  others;  nor 
can  they  thank  our  Lord  for  having  made  His  atonement  to  God 
for  their  sins,  and  having  thus  ransomed,  redeemed,  bought,  saved 
them  by  His  blood,  His  death,  from  their  sins,  the  penalty  they 
deserved,  from  "wrath,"  "indignation  and  wrath,  tribulation,  and 
anguish,"  from  "the  sentence  on  all  to  condemnation,"  from 
"eternal  punishment,"  from  all  signified  by  the  whole  throng  ot 
Scriptural  teachings  and  expressions  concerning  the  only  direct 
object  of  His  sufferings  and  dying  for  men.  Nor  can  they  exercise 
faith  in  the  Father  or  the  Son  for  any  of  these  things.  But  we  here 
dismiss  this  ill-invented  view,  which,  if  in  the  questions  of  Job — 
"Where  shall  wisdom  be  found?  And  where  is  the  place  of  under- 
standing?" we  substitute  morality  for  wisdom  and  theology  for 
understanding,  must  answer  each  of  them  as  the  deep  and  the  sea 
did  his — "  It  is  not  in  me." 

S  294.    THE  PRECEDING  SHOWINGS  AGAINST   THIS  VIEW  EQUALLY  VALID 
AGAINST  ALL  VIEWS  WHICH  DENY  JUSTICE  AND  THE  ATONEMENT. 

We  trust  the  readers  of  this  Chapter  will  recognize  that  what 
we  have  shown  in  it  against  the  miscalled  Moral  View  essentially 
applies  to  every  other  view  which  rejects  the  real  atonement  made 
by  Christ  for  the  sins  of  the  world.  For  no  other,  more  than  it,  can 
possibly  consist  with  what  we  have  shown  is  the  total,  uniform, 
explicit  teaching  of  Scriptures  respecting  the  real  one;  nor  respect- 
ing the  love  of  God  for  man  and  His  mercy  and  grace  towards  him; 


526  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

nor  with  what  this  real  one  involves  and  assumes  respecting  the  law, 
and  a  universal  and  perpetual  moral  society  and  system  constituted 
by  it,  or  by  universal  moral  reason  or  nature,  which  contains  and 
issues  it  to  all;  nor  with  what  it  involves  and  Scripture  teaches 
respecting  God's  rectoral  relations  to  the  law,  to  mankind  as  sinners 
and  moral  natures,  and  to  that  everlasting  society  and  system;  nor 
with  the  demands  of  moral  reason  and  conscience,  expressed  and 
manifested  all  over  the  world,  for  justice,  both  as  ethical  and  as 
retributive.  Denial  of  the  atonement  is  negation  of  all  these,  and 
makes  all  the  acting  and  course  of  God  towards  men  independent 
of  the  law  and  the  society  and  system  it  creates,  which,  if  He  is  a 
moral  being,  they  cannot  be,  and  so  makes  all  His  doings  towards  men 
actings  by  mere  lawless,  arbitrary  will.  Unless,  therefore,  all  sinners 
are  to  perish  forever  by  both  the  natural  consequences  and  the 
retributive  punishment  of  sin,  the  atonement  is  the  very  center  and  key- 
stone of  the  entire  moral  system,  and  a  denial  of  it  is  a  denial  of  that 
system,  and  of  the  possibility  of  its  existence.  It  is  intrinsically  infi- 
delity, not  merely  respecting  the  whole  Gospel  and  the  whole  love 
of  God  for  man  in  it,  but,  as  really,  respecting  the  law  and  its  jus- 
tice. It  is  necessarily  anti-moral,  as  infidelity  always  is;  and  when 
men  turn  liberals,  and  do  what  their  assumed  designation  chiefly 
means,  throw  away  the  Word  of  God,  His  inspired  revelation  to 
man;  throw  away  what  it,  especially  the  Gospel,  contains  and 
declares  as  absolutely  true  concerning  Christ  and  His  atonement  to 
God  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  that  is,  to  save  them  from  the  retribu- 
tive punishment  those  sins  deserve,  and  concerning  the  love  of  God 
in  giving  Him  to  do  and  suffer  for  them  all  and  as  He  did  thus  to 
save  them;  and  throw  away  all  it  teaches,  especially  from  Christ  and 
His  Apostles,  concerning  the  everlasting 'punishment  in  Gehenna  of 
all  who,  having  knowledge  of  the  Gospel,  will  not  comply  with  its 
requirements — when  their  liberalism  has  thus  thrown  Christianity 
and  the  whole  moral  system  of  which  it  is  the  center  away  from  them, 
and  they  feel,  think,  talk,  write,  and  take  sides  with  the  openly  illiberal 
and  bigoted  adversaries  of  these  against  those  who  stand  stanchly 
by  them,  it  is  not  for  intellectual,  but  for  anti-moral  reasons  that 
they  become  such  and  do  so;  for  no  sane  man  can  throw  away  the 
purely,  absolutely  moral  for  real  moral  reasons.  Nor  will  he  do  it 
for  any  intellectual  reasons,  for  there  can  be  no  valid  ones.  //  is 
the  moral  state  of  the  zvill  that  determines  the  action  of  the  intellect 
respecting  all  essential  morality. 


FUTURE  PUNISHMENT.  527 

§  295.    THE    QUESTION    OF    THE    PERPETUITY    OF    FUTURE    PUNISHMENT. 

We  think  we  have  abundantly  shown,  both  by  the  whole  scope 
of  this  treatise  and  by  specific  arguments  in  it  here  and  there,  that 
future  punishment  will  be  endless.  But  there  is  a  special  way  of 
looking  at  the  case,  to  which  we  here  ask  attention.  It  is,  that,  if 
the  race  had  been  continued  after  the  fall,  and  if  the  redemptive 
measure  had  not  been  designed  and  Christ  had  not  come  according 
to  it  to  save  them,  mankind  must  all  have  been  dealt  with  exactly 
according  to  the  law.  In  that  case,  how  could  their  punishment 
ever  have  had  an  end?  There  is  no  possibility  that  it  could.  But 
let  us  suppose  its  duration  would  have  been  limited,  and  that  Christ 
would  have  come  to  save  them  from  it.  He  could  then  only  have 
saved  them  from  it  during  the  time  set  for  its  continuance,  as  beyond 
it  they  would  not  be  liable  to  it,  but  justly  free  from  it.  Of  course, 
He  could  only  be  their  Saviour  during  that  time — a  limited  Saviour. 
But,  in  all  Scripture,  there  is  not  an  intimation  either  that  their 
punishment  or  His  salvation  from  it  has  any  limit  to  its  duration. 
Its  invariable  teaching  respecting  both  is  the  exact  opposite.  Christ, 
then,  came  to  save  them  from  endless  punishment,  and  nothing  less; 
and  He,  therefore,  is  not  an  abridged,  temporary  Saviour,  but  an 
absolutely  endless  one.  If  the  punishment,  to  which  they  are  all 
liable,  is  limited  in  duration,  there  was  no  necessity  for  Him  to  suffer 
in  order  that  any  might  be  endlessly  blessed,  as  all  would  be  so,  of 
course,  after  their  punishment  would  end.  Nor  would  there  be  a 
sufficient  reason  for  His  coming  to  save  them  from  it,  if  temporary, 
at  such  measureless  cost  to  Him,  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Holy 
Spirit;  for  since  their  punishment  would  at  longest  be  brief  com- 
pared with  the  eternal  blessedness  to  follow  it,  the  cost  of  saving 
them  from  it  would  vastly  exceed  the  gain.  But,  if  the  punishment, 
to  which  all  were  liable,  was  endless,  the  necessity  and  reason  for 
all  Christ  suffered  to  save  them  were  absolute.  In  the  light  of  this 
presentation  of  the  case,  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  words  forever, 
everlasting,  eternal  in  Scripture  when  used  to  express  the  duration 
of  future  punishment?  Clearly,  if  used  to  express  its  duration  for 
all,  if  Christ  had  not  come,  they  could  mean  nothing  else  than  that 
it  is  endless,  just  as  they  do  wlien  used  to  express  the  duration  of 
God,  or  of  the  spiritual  life  which  Christ  gives,  or  of  anything  the 
nature  of  which  is  unending.  This  we  insist  is  the  primaty,  radical, 
proper  meaning  of  these  words,  especially  of  the  Greek  word  a!wwoc 
in  the  New  Testament,  which  in  the  New  Version  is  properly  uni- 


528  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS  ON  THE  ATONEMENT. 

fornily  rendered  eternal;  so  that,  whenever  used  to  express  the  dura- 
tion of  objects  which  have  an  end,  they  are  always  used  in  a  secondary 
or  figurative  sense.  This  is  manifest,  because  they,  particularly  the 
Greek  adjective  named,  are  never  applied  to  objects  of  very  brief 
continuance,  but  only  to  such  as  last  so  long  that,  to  imagination,  they 
seem  endless,  as  to  mountains,  hills,  cities,  and  similar  ones.  It  is  be- 
cause their  primary  meaning  is  endless,  that  they  can  be  and  are  used 
thus  figuratively  to  signify  long,  though  limited  duration;  and  it  is  to 
reason  entirely  amiss  to  argue  that  the  derived,  figurative  meaning  is 
the  primary  and  proper  one  in  direct  opposition  to  fact,  and  that,  when 
applied  to  punishment,  they  do  not  mean  endless.  To  be  consistent, 
these  reasoners  should  maintain  that,  when  applied  to  God,  Christ, 
the  life  He  imparts,  and  to  other  such  objects,  they  do  not  mean  end- 
less, but  merely  long-continued  duration.  In  the  light  of  the  fore- 
going, the  question  is,  did  Christ  come  to  save  men  from  endless 
punishment,  inevitably  certain  to  them  if  He  had  not  come?  Com- 
mon sense  and  Scripture  can  only  answer,  Yes.  Another  question 
is,  did  He  abolish  the  liability  of  all  men  to  this  punishment,  so  that 
no  condition  is  to  be  fulfilled  by  them  to  escape  it,  or  only  provis- 
ority  and  conditionally?  And  the  only  answer  of  Scripture  and  com- 
mon sense  is,  No.  For,  if  there  is  a  moral  system,  as  there  certainly 
is;  if  the  law  with  its  perfect  justice  is  not  abrogated,  as  it  certainly 
is  not,  because  it  is  in  and  from  the  nature  of  God  and  of  all  moral 
beings;  if  God  is  in  and  Ruler  of  the  universal  moral  society,  as 
He  certainly  is;  if  the  Bible  unvaringly,  positively  requires  from  all 
sinners  repentance  toward  God,  and  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
as  conditions  of  forgiveness  and  salvation — then  Christ  did  not  come 
to  save  a  single  responsible  actor  of  our  total  race  unconditionallv, 
and  never  will.  All  who  do  not  fulfill  the  conditions  remain  under 
liability  to  suffer,  and,  if  they  die  under  it,  will  suffer  endless  punish- 
ment; and  no  attempt  to  limit  the  meaning  of  mmnoi,  eternal,  or  of 
any  other  word  or  expression  signifying  the  same  can  ever  consist 
with  exegesis,  learning,  logic,  or  the  nature  of  the  case.  Those  who 
will  not  accept  the  salvation  offered  by  and  from  Christ  by  fulfilling 
its  conditions  will  not  only  suffer  what  they  would,  if  He  had  not 
come,  but,  in  addition,  what  they  deserve  for  rejecting  it  and  Him. 
No  sentimental  folly  will  ever  change  these  conditions  and  solemn 
facts.  For,  we  add,  if  Christ  had  come  to  save  men  unconditionally 
from  this  punishment,  He  would  be  the  chief  of  all  sinners  Himself, 
the  arch-enemy  of  the  law  and  its  justice,  both  ethical  and  retribu- 
tive, and  so  of  its  matter  of  moral  love,  of  God's  Moral  Government, 


FUTURE  PUNISHMENT.  529 

of  His  character,  and  of  all  good  in  the  universe.  We  add  further 
that,  if  the  terms  mentioned  are  used  figuratively,  and  mean  only 
limited  duration,  when  applied  to  punishment,  the  same  must  be 
true  of  them  when  applied  to  its  contraries — salvation,  redemption, 
life,  and  the  like,  because  their  meaning  in  the  latter  case  exactly 
equals  it  in  the  former.  Whoever  blots  out  Gehenna,  as  taught  by 
Christ  and  His  Apostles,  blots  out  salvation  and  Heaven. 

We  finish  this  Work  by  saying  that  the  Church  of  Christ  neither 
needs,  nor  will  or  can  have  a  new  Theology,  because  the  old  is  not 
of  man,  but  of  God — not  what  Augustine,  Luther,  Calvin,  Wesley, 
or  any  other  man  has  taught,  but  what  the  Bible  teaches.  No  so- 
called  Theology,  essentially  differing  from  the  old  evangelical  one, 
will  ever  be  true,  because  it  will  always  be  built  on  the  sand  of  some 
speculation  or  theory  originated  by  sentimentalism,  naturalism,  or 
false  assumption.  Lacking  any  real  moral  essence  and  system,  it 
will  mainly  consist  of  negations  of  the  true  one;  and  negations  never 
have  any  real  life  in  them.  Positives,  built  on  the  solid  rock  of 
inspired  revelation,  not  wrested,  but  rightly  interpreted,  will  stand 
forever,  and  will  forever  hold  and  mold  the  Church.  The  real 
Church  will  cleave  with  unyielding  tenacity  to  the  Bible  and  its 
ever-precious  contents  as  they  are,  vitally  articulated  to  each  other. 
Above  all,  will  it  cleave  to  the  manifested  love  of  God,  Father,  Son, 
and  Spirit,  in  the  great  measure  of  redemption,  and  to  the  dear 
Christ  who  bought  it  with  His  own  blood.  "  No  man,  having  drunk 
old  wine,  straightway  desireth  new:  for  he  saith,  The  old  is  b^ttex." 


FINIS. 


INDEX. 


Aaron,  and  successors  in  High  Priesthood  typical  of  Christ  in  His,  380-84. 

Abandoiunent,  to  sin  and  its  natural  consequences,  39,  265,  338,  344,  491. 

Ah^l,  animal  sacrifices  not  originated  by,  367.  Why  his  accepted,  Cain's  offering 
not,  373. 

Adam,  race-constitution  of,  and  his  relation  by  it  to  his  race,  170,  325.  As  created, 
326-7.  Effects  of  his  sin  to  himself,  326-9.  Trial  of,  really  also  of  his  pos- 
terity, 169,  325,  337,  339.  Effects  to  them  of  his  sin,  336,  344-9.  In  what 
sense  created  righteous,  327,  336.  His  sin  caused  instant  spiritual  death,  329. 
Dooms  on,  and  on  Eve,  in  Gen.  3:16-19,  also  on  their  posterity,  and  pertain 
to  the  redemptive  system,  330-5.  He  and  Eve  only  of  mankind  had  a  legal 
probation,  170,  180,  343.  He  a  type  of  Christ;  differences  and  resemblances 
between  them,  and  the  effects  of  their  action  on  mankind,  342-9.  He  and 
Eve  repented  and  were  forgiven,  336,  370.  Animal  sacrifices  began  with, 
2.39.  366-373. 

Adoptio7t,  none  children  of  God,  but  by,  of  the  Father,  117.  What,  makes  them 
heirs  of,  201.     When  completed,  333. 

Agreement,  between  Father  and  Son  as  to  their  parts  in  the  redemptive  measure, 
268-9,  288-9,  444,  516,  520. 

Alford,  on  irreconcilability  of  God's  sovereignty  and  man's  freedom,  20I.  On 
anli  in  Mat.  20:28  and  Ma.  10:45,  434-   His  notion  of  God's  being  as  Love,  514. 

Allen,  John,  translator  of  Outram,  reference  to  note  of,  on  pp.  18-22  of  Outram, 
368.     Another  note  of,  370. 

Angels,  not  a  race,  and  each  acts  only  for  himself,  i6g.  Why  God  created  those 
of  them  He  knew  would  fall,  176.  How  created  and  began  their  probation, 
179-80. 

Anger,  God's  against  sinners  unreasonable  on  Bushnell's  propitiation,  249-50. 

Annihilation,  objections  to,  104,  182,  309. 

Anomalous,  condition  and  relations  to  God  and  His  Holy  society  of  mankind  dur- 
ing their  gracious  probation,  7,  15. 

Apollinaris,  his  notion  of  the  incarnation,  161. 

Arbitration,  of  moral  choice,  12,  81,  192,  196-7,  288. 

Aratiis,  Greek  poet,  quoted  by  Paul,  113,  172. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  quotation  from,  etc.,  79. 

At/ianasius,  his  notion  that  God  is  impassible  rejected.  300-2. 

Atonement,  defined,  259,  269.  E.xclusively  to  God  /or  the  sins  of  mankind,  259- 
60.  For  all  men  alike  as  a  provision;  and  actual  for  those  only  who  ful- 
fill its  conditions,  259,  279-286.  Directly  related,  not  to  bodily  nor  spiritual 
death,  but  to  penal  only,  331.  Hebrew  word  translated  atonement, 
355  6,  358.  Four,  in  books  of  Moses,  without  animal  sacrifices,  356  8.  Two, 
ol  sacrifices  of  human  life,  358.  In  what,  by  animal  sacrifices  consisted,  358. 
Always  e.Kpiatory,  373-379.  All  ottered  to  God  to  produce  effects  in,  etc., /or 
human  sinners,  as  was  Christ's,  259-60.  To  God  always  understood,  if  not 
expressed,  etc.,  262-3.  What  not  implied  in  Christ's  making  His,  263-5.  Why 
His,  equivalent  to  the  deserved  penal  suff"erings  of  all  human  sinners,  268. 
Human  rulers  incompetent  to  make  one,  272.  Necessity  for,  105,  395,  439- 
446,  461,  464.     Obligation  ou  God  10  make  one,  what  and  why,  309-16.    Ex- 


532  INDEX. 

tent  of,  465-8.  Center  and  keystone  of  the  moral  system,  298,  526.  Govern- 
mental view  of,  examined,  475-487. 

Augustine,  his  notion  of  predestination,  rejected,  207,  350. 

Automatic,  no  law  is,  39,  40,  64,  90,  in,  518. 

Bacon,  Lord,  quoted,  315. 

Bdhr,  on  expiatory  character  of  peace-offerings,  376. 

Barnes,  on  Matthew's  translation  of  Is.  53:4,  409.  On  difference  between  the 
Hebrew  words  rendered  "sorrows"  and  "griefs,"  410. 

Barry,  Alfred,  against  origination  by  direction  of  God  to  Adam  of  animal  sacri- 
fices, 368. 

Baur,  F.  C,  on  preposition  huper,  438. 

Benevolence,  of  God,  retributive  justice  consistent  with  and  necessary  to,  100-4, 
80-1,  86,  97.  He  would  lack,  if  pardoned  sinners  for  mere  repentance,  99, 
100.  Plans  of  creation  and  redemption  best  possible  for  all  ends  of,  198-9.  If 
had  not  provided  the  redemptive  measure,  would  have  lacked,  312-3. 

Blootnfield,  quoted,  430. 

Body,  more  tempting,  etc.,  by  sin,  37.  Atonement  not  related  to  the,  and  it  must 
die,  272,  331,  335.  How  raised,  189,  333.  Adam's,  how  created,  326.  Death 
of,  not  included  in  threatening  of  Gen.  2:17,  329-331.  Of  Christ,  had  a 
human  soul  in  it,  161-4. 

Braune,  mistake  of,  respecting  propitiation,  in  Comm.  on  I.  John  4:10,  446.  On 
I.  John  1:7,  432. 

Burnt-offirings,  origin  of,  239-241,  366-373.  Design  of  kind  of  animals,  mode 
of  offering,  366-7.  Distributed  into  the  other  sacrifices  by  the  Levitical  Law, 
369.  375-     All  animal  sacrifices  expiatory,  377-9. 

Bus/:,  states  number  of  times   n^CHi  ^in,  sin-offering,  is  rendered  d.ua^-ia  m 

T  - 

Septuagint,  and  in  Eng.  version  of  Lev.  Law,  361.  His  Introduction  to 
Chap.  I.  of  Leviticus,  376. 

Bttj/ine//,  respecting  an  "impersonal  law,"  and  love,  9.  On  "Idea  of  Right," 
rejected,  25-8.  On  natural  consequences  of  moral  action,  its  retributions, 
37-8.  His  notion  of  "retributive  causes  set  in  moral  natures,"  groundless, 
38,  68-9.  Denial  by,  that  desert  is  the  rule  of  retributions,  absurd,  82-7. 
Notion  of,  that  God's  moral  government  includes  redemption,  refuted,  81-3. 
That  God  and  all  good  beings  should  sympathize  with  and  go  to  cost  for  sin- 
ners, limited,  100-4.  Error  of,  that  sufferings  of  a  mother  for  her  child,  etc., 
are  vicarious,  and  Christ's  in  same  sense,  266,  270-2.  His  notion  of 
justice,  groundless,  227-9.  Error  of,  that  there  is  a  vicarious  principle 
in  all  love,  272-4,  274-8.  Assertion  by,  of  an  obligation  on  God  to  men,  etc., 
not  discriminated,  nor  true,  304-6.  Do.  as  to  what  love  does  not  do,  296-7. 
Misrepresentations  by,  of  expiation,  refuted,  242-6.  His  notion  of  propitiation, 
a  prodigious  conceit,  248-53.  Do.  of  the  Trinity,  and  of  an  untragic  world, 
etc.,  253-4.  His  notion  of  justice,  justice  and  mercy,  and  their  equality  of 
origin,  claims,  etc.,  groundless,  227-9.  I^"-  '^^^'^  "the  O.  T.  makes  nothing 
of  the  pains  of  the  animal"  sacrificed,  etc.,  futile,  456.  Do.  on  propitiation, 
and  on  forgiveness  a  personal  matter,  etc.,  and  what  is  against,  488-93. 

Butler,  position  of,  that  God  has  a  natural  government  besides  His  moral, 
rejected,  67-73.     *^n  happiness,  78. 

Chalmers,  endorses  Butler  on  a  natural  government,  67. 

Carlyle,  reference  by,  to  Pope's  line— "  Oh,  happiness,  etc.,"  183. 

Children,  of  God,  who.  117, 

Choice,  moral,  two  opposite  radical,  divide  moral  beings,  4.  Power  of  all  to  arbi- 
trate between,  12.  Radical  moral  or  religious,  how  affected  by  habit,  35. 
Moral  quality  of  all  executive  actions  determined  by  the  radical,  36.  Destiny 
of  each  person  decided  by  his  own,  190-I.  All  free  in  determining  their  own, 
200-1,  287-8.  Power  to  determine,  in  view  of  motives,  possessed  by  all 
moral  beings  during  probation,  308.     Also,  to  change  it,  339,  349. 

Christ,  complete  humanity  of,  in  union  with  His  Divine  nature,  and  why,  161-4. 
No   incarnation  of,  if  man    had    not   sinned,   and    necessity  of,  167-9.     Pos 


INDEX.  533 

sible  in  human  nature  only,  168-9.  Antitype  of  Adam,  342.  Effects  to  man- 
kind of  obedience  of,  in  contrast  with  those  of  sin  of  Adam,  342-9.  Priest- 
hood of,  385-97.  Levitical  sacrifices  all  typical  of  Him,  His,  and  its  effects, 
379-80.  Only  could  be  the  subject  of  Is.  53,  405.  Representative  of  man- 
kind, and  so  their  substitute  in  His  sufferings  and  death,  169,  259,  267-9, 
282-5,  288,  298-9.  Absolute  right  of,  to  become  and  suffer  as  He  did  for  man, 
and  of  the  p'ather  to  act  His  part,  269,  288-9.  Value  and  potency  of  His 
sufferings  and  death  unlimited,  244,  268-9,  299,*5o5.  ^ot  punished  {qx  sins  of 
mankind,  but,  as  their  representative  and  substitute,  bore  their  punishment 
equivalently,  290.  Perfectly  voluntary  in  His  whole  part,  269,  284.  His 
merit  infinite,  504,  505,  506.  Only  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  232, 
High  Priest  and  Mediatorial  King  in  heaven  till  after  the  judgment,  1S5,  391, 
392.     Judge  of  the  race,  84. 

Christianity,  what  grounded  on,  and  demonstrates,  317.  No  apologies  to  make  for 
itself,  318. 

Church,  whole  destiny  of,  included  in  redemptive  plan,  186-8. 

Cicero,  on  the  law,  quoted  twice  in  note,  li.  Definition  of  justice  by,  18.  Aspira- 
tion of  for  immortality,  334.    Declared  man  made  in  the  likeness  of  God,  173. 

Clark,  Adam,  held  that  God  can  limit  his  omniscience  by  His  will,  189. 

Concern,  supreme,  of  God  and  all  good  beings,  whether  the  due  of  moral  love  is 
rendered  by  any  or  not,  44,  48,  54-5,  and  in  other  places.  God  without,  if 
pardons  for  mere  repentance,  99. 

Coleridge,  his  estimate  of  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  217.  His  erroneous  notion 
of  the  atonement,  434. 

Condition,  ethical,  of  forgiveness  on  ground  of  the  atonement,  280.  No,  if  the 
atonement  is  actual  for  all,  or  any  part  of  mankind,  282-3.  Is  for  all  through 
life,  286. 

Confonnity,  to  image  of  Christ,  one  end  of  predestination,  207,  210.  God's  good- 
ness, absolute,  to  His  eternal  nature,  314. 

Conscience,  gives  verdict  respecting  action  done  or  thought  of,  5.  Attests  and 
enforces  the  law  as  God's,  9,  493.  Judicial  respecting  moral  action  and  char- 
acter, and  sensibility  connected  with,  12.  Affirms  good-deserts  of  obedience 
and  ill-deserts  of  disobedience,  135,  46,  64,  96-7.  God  has  a,  17.  What,  has 
always  taught  mankind,  20.     Sensibility  of,  blunted,  etc.,  by  sin,  36,  52,  69, 

327.  Ever  points  to  God,  etc.,  38,  60.  What  alone  it  presignifies,  38-9,  42, 
59.  Attests  and  demands  Divine  retributions,  39,  42-5.  Has  a  two-fold  func- 
tion, 41.  Does  not  threaten  the  natural  consequences  of  sin,  49.  God's  ver- 
acity in  its  averments  and  prophecies,  53.  In  what  it  speaks  falsely,  if  natural 
consequences  of  sin  its  retributions,  56.  Action  of,  comparatively  slight,  if 
this  were  true,  57.  Center  of  the  moral  nature,  69.  Both  it  and  Scripture 
declare  positive  retributions  from  God,  72.  Acts  alike  respecting  the  retribu- 
tive consequences  of  each  kind  of  action,  90-1.  God  responsible  before  His 
own,  93,  310.  Contradicted,  if  positive  retributions  are  denied,  96.  Con- 
demns and  dooms  without  a  hint  of  mercy  and  grace,  98.  God  would  war 
with,  if  should  pardon  for  mere  repentance,  99,  49I-2.  Retributive  justice 
certified  by,  223.  Unanimous,  will  forever  approve  and  applaud  the  substi- 
tution of  Christ,  445-6.     Adam's,  as  created,  327.     Became  impaired  by  sin, 

328.  Obligation  of,  on  God  to  do  the  best  possible  to  save  men,  461.  Merit 
or  desert  of  reward  for  obedience  affirmed  by  universal,  505-6.  As  quickened 
by  the  Spirit  in  regeneration,  508. 

Consciousness,  one  teacher  concerning  the  law,  3.  The  law  given  in,  as  God's,  9. 
Personal  identity  known  by,  69.  What  a  correct  psychology  will  find  in,  107. 
Of  each  a  medium  of  knowing  what  is  due  to  others,  108.  Defined,  133.  Of 
each  Person  of  the  Godhead  His  own,  137.  Testifies  that  men,  though  fallen, 
have  the  natural  power  of  moral  choice,  339. 

Consequences,  natural,  of  obedience  and  sin,  34-7.  Why  called  natural,  37,  Not 
retributive,  nor  presignified  by  conscience,  though  many  of,  caused  by  its 
action,  38-40.  Not  social,  but  personal,  and  what  are  no  expression  of,  44-9. 
Not  nor  among,  retributions,  51-9,  62-6.  Why  cannot  be,  68-72.  What  it 
makes  God  to  assert  these  the  only  retributions,  74.  If  the  only  punitive, 
also  the  only  remiineratory,  and  what,  46-7,  64.  Bad,  cannot  be  forgiven, 
56-7,  76,  522.     None  of  bad,  experienced  by  Christ,  264.     Difference  between 


534  INDEX. 

condition  of  immortals  in  luin  from,  and  saved  from,  to  the  eye  of  omniscience, 
311.     Not  the  sanctions  of  the  law  in  Scripture,  51-5,  75-6. 

Cook,  Joseph,  his  view  of  the  Trinity  rejected--Note,  138  41. 

Cost,  concerning  God  and  all  good  beings  going  to,  for  the  wicked,  100-104,  238. 
Absurdity  of,  249-53,  274  8,  4S8.  What  would  make  Him  and  them,  loi, 
238,  274-5,  488,.  492.     God's  real,  what,  255,  230-1,  264,  443,  461. 

Counsel,  God  has  no  right  of,  as  to  punishing  sinners,  if  does  not  provide  substitu- 
tion,   84-7.  ,     ,  .  ,,  T, 

Crawford,  J.  T.,  author  of  "The  Scriptural  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement,"  on  Pass- 
over in  note,  383.  On  Greek  phrase,  "  to  die  for  (huper)  any  one,"  435,  438. 
On  Bushnell's  assertion  respecting  the  usus  loquendi  of  sacrificial  language, 

415-  .      . 

Creationism,  objections  to,  322-5. 
Creature  {ktlck;),  meaning  of  in  Rom.  8:19-23,  332. 
Cudivorth,  on  justice  as  intrinsic,  in  his  "Divine  and  immutable  Morality,"  30. 

References  to,  respecting  notions  of  a  Trinity  among  ancient  heathen,  141. 

Death,  meaning  of,  in  Gen.  2:17,  how  known  by  Adam,  and  bodily,  not  included 
there,  329  31,  194.  This,  meant  in  Gen.  3:19,  329-31.  Why  infliction  of 
penal,  on  first  pair  suspended,  etc.,  338.  Bodily,  not  a  ««/?<;'«/ effect  of  sin, 
but  appointed;  and  how  may  be  included  in  Rom,  5:12-19,  340.  No  bodily, 
if  had  been  no  sin,  340.  Christ  retrieves  believers  from  every  kind  of,  345. 
Fundamental  sense  of,  329. 

Delitzsch,  quoted,  388. 

Desert,  good  or  ill,  13-15,  39,  41-3,  46.  Good,  of  God,  boundless,  17.  Con- 
science and  revelation  alike  teach  that  God  will  punish  according  to  ill,  60. 
Not  the  rule  for  rewarding,  if  not  for  punishing,  64.  Essential  to  moral  beings 
to  have  intuitive  affirmations  of  good  or  ill,  for  their  moral  action,  69,  81.  Dura- 
tion of  ill,  82^3.  Ill,  the  only  measure  of  just  punishment,  83-7.  Ill,  intrinsic 
in  wrong  action,  and  never  affirmed  by  conscience  on  the  ground  of  its  con- 
sequences, 88-91. 

Disobedience,  tendencies  of,  whence,  37,  44.     Is  to  God  radically,  not  to  men,  49. 

Dooming,  of  Adam  and  race  to  bodily  death,  in  Gen.  3:17,  I9,  what  not,  shown 
by  Rom.  8:19-21,  330-3. 

Due,  of  moral  love,  by  the  law,  to  God  and  all,  including  self,  5.  To  every 
obedient  one  is  justice  by  two  rights,  13.  From  God  and  men  to  one  always 
perfect  in  moral  love — e.  g.  Christ,  14.  In  a  modified  sense,  to  the  truly 
renewed,  15.  From  men  to  each  other,  though  sinners,  15-17.  To  God,  by 
all  rights,  the  absolute  love  of  all,  17,  18.  Is  to  all  having  rights  to  thii  love, 
17,  i8.  Rendering  it  is  paying,  and  not  is  robbing  QoA.  and  all  moral  beings 
of  this  radical,  40-4,  47.     Substitution  for  this,  must  secure  the  same,  298. 

Dusterdieck,,  mistake  of,  respecting  propitiation  in  I.  John  4:10,  446. 

Divight,  S.  E.  in  note,  on  Heb.  verb  and  noun  rendered  to  atone  and  atonemeent, 
355-66.  On  atonements  to  God  by  substitution  of  a  life,  358.  On  Jewish 
view  of  diseases  as  punishments  for  sin,  362.  On  all  bloody  sacrifices  being 
vicarious,  379.     In  text  and  note  on  Greek  verb  i?<.acKO,uai ,  etc.,  448. 


Efficiency,  Divine,  to  secure   the  conversion  of  sinners,  limited,  I9I-4. 
the  Spirit's  never  given  in  the  Bible  as  the   reason  why  any  remait 


Lack  of 
lam  uncon- 
verted, 196. 

Election,  not  for  any  secret  reason  independent  of  the  redemptive  measure;  and 
Christ  the  sphere  of,  194.  Made  with  reference  to  the  foreseen  effects  of  that 
measure,  195.  Based  on  God's  foreknowledge  of  the  effects  stated,  199-201. 
Nothing  in,  inconsistent  with  man's  freedom,  etc.,  200-1.  Distinct  from  fore- 
knowledge, 201-2,  208.  What  the  elect  are  chosen  to,  205-6,  210.  Included 
in  God's  purpose,  205-9.  Of  Jacob,  Rom.  9:11,  different  in  end  and  in  all 
respects,  211-215. 

End,  of  the  law,  of  obedience  and  of  sin,  4,  58,  94.  Aggregate,  of  love  same  as 
of  the  law,  46,  58,  514.  Of  retributive  punishment,  46-7,  484.  Of  God's 
administration  of  the  sanctions  of  the  law,  54,  91.  Natural  consequenceism  at 
war  with  the,  of  the  law,  etc,  56.     Of  justice,  social;  and,  of  God's  benevo- 


INDEX.  535 

lence  and  justice  the  same,  86-7.  Of  punisliment,  love,  and  substitution  the 
same,  87,  97.  Repentance  meets  no,  of  justice,  nor  of  moral  love,  99.  Kant's 
imperative  has  neither  matter  nor,  106.  To  create  moral  beings,  God's  work 
having  the  highest,  1 15,  182.  These  alone  ends  in  themselves,  176,  307.  A 
social  system  must  have  social,  183.  Of  election,  205  6.  Different  from  those 
of  predestination,  206,  208,  210.  No  special,  assigned  to  God's  purpose,  209. 
Of  retributive  justice  imnieasureably  greater  than  the,  of  mercy,  227.  Of  the 
atonement,  259,  262,  484,  486.  Man  the  consummate,  of  our  world,  307. 
Cluster  of,  secured  by  the  atonement  according  to  Governmental  Theory, 
476-85. 

Epicurus,  his  notion  of  God,  45,  148,  51S. 

Eve,  effects  of  her  sin  same  to  her  as  of  Adam's  to  him,  328. 

Expiation,  defined,  and  connection  of,  with  propitiation,  237,  472.  Justice  makes, 
a  moral  sine  qua  non  of  forgiveness,  238.  Sacrifices  of  Israelites  and  heathen 
from  earliest  times  all  expiatory,  and  origin  of,  239.  Essentially  same  objec- 
tions to,  from  Socinus  down,  and  by  whom,  241-2.  Assaults  on,  by  Bushnell, 
and  refuted,  243-6.  His  notion  of  propitiation  without,  a  prodigious  conceit, 
248-53.    Why  sufferings  of  Christ  propitiate  God  towards  sinners,  as  an,  246-7. 

Fairbairn,  on  Lev.  17:11,358-9.  Referred  to,  in  note,  on  sinning  ignorantly,  361. 
In  note,  on  laying  hands  on  heads  of  victims,  etc.,  366.  In  note,  on  origina- 
tion of  sacrifices,  etc,  368.  His  quotation  from  Bahr,  377.  On  why  laying 
hands  on  heads  of  animals  of  guilt-offerings  is  not  mentioned,  in  note,  378. 
Another  reference  to,  in  note,  378.  On  the  expiatory  and  typical  character  of 
the  Passover,  in  note,  383. 

Faith,  appropriates  "abundance  of  grace,  etc,"  Rom.  5:17,  345.  Of  Adam  and 
Eve,  370.  Of  Abel,  and  what  it  is,  372-3.  What  is  in  general,  2S0.  Condi- 
tion of  forgiveness  and  justification,  493,  497-8,  501,  507,  508-9. 

J'ather,  God,  not  of  mankind  by  creation,  111-117.  Ot  whom,  117,  118.  Infin- 
itely unjust  to  the  Son,  if  He  only  a  martyr,  443-45.  Had  a  perfect  right  to 
act  His  part  in  the  redemptive  measure,  269,  288-9.  Agreement  between,  and 
Son,  as  to  their  parts,  269,  289,  290,  444.  Christ  subjected  to  His  sufferings 
and  death  by  the,  268,  419-20,426,442-3.  How  their  value  regarded  by  the, 
268.     Moral  necessity  on  the,  to  act  His  part  in  the  redemptive  measure,  440 

Force,  has  no  adaptation,  to  secure  right  moral  action,  59.  104. 

Forfeiture,  by  sin,  6,  13,  14,  31,  40,  46-7.  83,  87,  lOO,  312.  492 

Forgiveness,  impossible  if  natural  consequences  the  sancticms  of  the  law,  57,  7O, 
No,  except  on  basis  of  the  atonement,  98,  105,  244,  2S0,  497.  No,  to  Israel 
ites,  except  on  basis  of  animal  sacrifices,  377-81.  No,  il  no  desert  of  and 
demand  for  penal  retributions,  277.  Bushnell's  views  of,  ridiculous,  250-I. 
Repentance  not  the  only  requisite  for,  100,  238,  241-2,  244-5.  Makes  atone- 
ment actual  \ox  one,  280,  282,  285,  468.  All  may  have,  if  will,  286.  Ethical 
conditions  of,  287-8.  Not  a  mere  personal  matter,  as  Bushnell  held,  489-93, 
509.  What  is,  as  Scripture  teaches,  493-4.  Done  in  God's  mind,  not  in  its 
objects,  495.  Immoral,  if  not  consistent  with  lustice,  496.  Included  in  justi- 
fication, 496,  507-8.  Cannot  be  prayed  for  intelligently  by  holders  of  so-called 
Moral  View,  524. 

Foreknoivledge,  of  God,  necessary  part  of  His  omniscience,  189.  Determines 
nothing  concerning  its  objects,  but  is  determined  by  them,  190.  Relation  of, 
to  God's  sovereignty  in  executing  the  measure  of  redemption,  148  9.  The 
antecedent  of  election  and  predestination,  202-204.  Of  results  of  His  eternal 
purpose,  His  reason  for  adopting  it,  208-10.  Created  angels  and  men  with 
])erfect,  of  all  who  would  be  lost,  and  why,  175-7,  178-84. 

Fronmiiller,  on  meaning  of  "redeemed  "  in  I,  Pet.  I:i8,  451.  On  do.  of  Iniper  in 
I.  Pet.  2:21,  456. 

Gesenius,  his  s.-itcrpretation  o*.  meanings  oi  Kasa  xnd  sabhai  \n  is.  53:H,  12,422, 
424- 

'Jo J,  the  law  given  in  moral  beings  a?  His,  9.  .Note  on  classic  authors  asserting 
the  hnv  in  inea  from,  9.  ir.  Could  not  institute  a  government  requiring  jus- 
tice and  forbidding  iniu.-lice.  if  justice  not  required  by  law  in  Him  and  all,  29. 


536  INDEX. 

30.  If  not  an  administrator  of  rewards  and  punishments,  like  lazy  God  of 
Epicurus,  etc.,  56.  Obligation  on,  and  character  of,  eclipsed,  if  natural  con- 
sequences the  only  retributions,  58,  63-66.  Can  administer  real  retributions 
only  after  probation  is  ended,  72-3.  Bound  to  have  a  moral  government,  74- 
77.  Wrath  of,  against  sinners,  83-4.  Meaning  of  word,  God,  118.  Groups 
of  Scriptural  passages  respecting,  as  Ruler,  1 18-21.  His  mode  of  existence, 
attributes,  etc.,  mysteries  to  man,  except  as  revealed  in  Scripture,  128-30.  No 
reason  to  reject  Scriptural  doctrine  of  His  existence  in  the  mode  of  the  Trinity, 
133-42.  The  fact  and  doctrine  of  His  love  rest  entirely  on  those  of  the  Trinity, 
156-60.  The  Creator  of  man,  171-3.  Do.  of  all  worlds  and  creatures,  173-7. 
Reconciliation  of,  to  men  by  expiatory  sufferings  of  Christ,  254-7.  Not  im- 
passible, 300-2.     Atonement  devised  by,  why  and  when,  460-3. 

Government,  God's  moral,  modified  towards  mankind,  as  sinners,  7,  Univei^sal, 
endless,  and  distinct  from  His  Theocratic,  over  Israel,  8,  360.  No,  without 
positive  rewards  and  punishments,  40.  Conscience  attests  that  God 
has  a,  49.  Chief  business  of  God  as  having  a  54-5.  Butler's  natural, 
of  God  groundless,  68-74.  Alternative,  if  He  has  no  moral,  74-7.  No 
redemptive  provision  in  His,  91-8.  That  He  has  a  positive,  prodigally  taught 
in  Scriptures,  III.  All  men  alike  related  as  sinners  to  God's,  279.  His 
Theocratic,  over  Israel,  how  related  to  His  universal  and  eternal,  380-1,  398. 
According  to  Governmental  View  of  atonement,  God's,  only  a  device,  475. 
Contrast  between  God's  real  and  this,  477-80.  Why  He  must  have  a,  482-4. 
So-called  Moral  View  makes  a,  impossible,  517. 

Grace,  of  God,  as  a  disposition,  daughter  of  mercy,  dwarfed,  etc.,  by  so-called 
Moral  View  of  atonement,  521.  Defined,  149.  Sinners  renewed  and  exercise 
moral  love  under  God's,  14.  Redemptive  measure  devised  and  executed  by 
Persons  of  Trinity  from  pure,  83-4.     Forgiveness  .and  salvation  gifts  of,  203. 

Gray,  Ode  to  Adversity  by,  referred  to,  335. 

Grinfield,  states  number  of  direct  quotations  from  O.  T.  in  New,  nearly  ail  from 
Septuagint,  401. 

Guilt,  sense  of,  40-1.  Correlative  sense  of,  of  wrong-doers  in  others,  etc,  41-2.  Not 
abated  by  any  experiences  of  natural  consequences,  41-2.  How  has  always 
led  men  to  act  and  express  what  it  teaches,  42.  How  quickened  and  ener- 
gized, or  diminished,  57.     G;<z7^-offerings,  364-6. 

Habit,  law  and  effects  of,  on  action  of  the  Will,  Intelligence  and  Sensibility,  35-6. 
Makes  indefinitely  prolonged  probation  impossible,  36,  98.  Involved  in  ten- 
dencies of  all  moral  action,  44.  Essential  to  a  moral  being,  and  results  of,  69. 
Increases  difliculty  of  repentance,  98.  Binding  and  dire  forces  of  the,  of  sin, 
191-2.     Does  not  destroy  natural  freedom  of  will  during  probation,  339. 

Hagenbach,  reference  in  note  to  his  History  of  Doctrines,  166. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  on  term,  idea,  referred  to,  29. 

Happiness,  Butler  on,  78.  vVhat;  without  moral  significance  and  definable  mean 
ing,  182  3. 

Hengstenberg,  reference  to  his  "Genuineness  of  the  Pentateuch,"  respecting  posi 
tive  punishment  in  this  world,  62.  On  Heb.  verb,  7iasa,  407-9.  On  Heb 
word  rendered  sorrows  in  common  version,  409.  On  Is.  53:7,  418-9.  His 
translation  of  v.  9,  419.  Reference  to,  on  v.  10,  420.  Mistake  of,  we  think 
respecting  futures  in  vs.  11,  12,  following  Gesenius,  422.     Reference  to,  424. 

Holy  Spirit,  third  Person  of  Trinity,  130.  Not  an  impersonal  hypostasis — in 
note,  138-9.  Supreme  Author  of  Scriptures,  139.  Proceeding  from  Father 
and  Son,  and  could  not  perform  the  part  of  either,  153.  His  part  a  distinct 
manifestation  of  God's  love  for  man,  156.  Union  of  Christ's  two  natures 
effected  by,  165.  Under  His  supreme  agency  that  men  ever  turn  to 
God,  191.  Given  on  basis  of  atonement,  and  exerts  His  agency  on 
all  as  much  as  wisdom  permits,  192.  How  His  efficiency  is  limited,  192-4. 
r^ifficuity  why  one  does,  another  not,  yield  to  His  agency  lies  in  human  will, 
196-7.  Nature  or  kind  of  power  of,  193-4,  200-1.  Agency  of,  included  in 
God's  eternal  plan,  198.  What  is  to  accomplish,  200.  Election  made  effectual 
to  its  objects  by  agency  of,  205.  Regeneration  and  sanctification  by,  508. 
Gift  of,  by  Father  and  Son,  521,  524. 


INDEX.  537 

Hooker,  description  by,  of  the  law,  lo. 

Hope,  mankind  placed  on  basis  of,  before  doomings  of  Gen.  3:16-19,  333.  Mean- 
ing of  Paul's  words  "we  are  saved  by  hope,"  334.  lllusUative  quotations 
from  Schlegel,  Cicero,  and  Seneca,  334. 

Horace,  opening  lines  of  his  Ars  Poetica,  253. 

Howe,  on  Trinity,  reference  to,  141. 

Idea,  of  right,  the  law  not  given  as  an,  and  not  the,  5,  9.  All  men  have  the,  of 
ethical  justice,  and  of  the  due  and  debt  of  moral  love,  18.  Noun,  action, 
commonly  understood  after,  of  right  or  wrong,  22.  No  law  or  obligation  in 
an,  26,  28.     Law  distinguished  from  all,  connected  with  it,  29. 

Iinas;e,  Christ  the,  of  God,  172.  Man  made  in  the,  of  God,  171-2.  Saints  con- 
formed to  the,  of  Christ,  210. 

Imperative,  the  law  comes  to  each  as  an,  or  mandate,  3,  5,  6.  Obligation  to  obey 
imposed  by  the,  5,  6.  The  law,  the  legislation  of  God  in  each  one  by  its,  8,  9. 
The,  imposes  an  obligation  of  justice,  to  whom,  etc.,  6,  12,  13.  Each  becomes 
a  moral  actor  by  first  issuance  of  the,  13.  No,  conies  as  an  idea,  29.  What 
an,  is  not,  106-7.  Can  enjoin  nothing  in  God's  mind  as  due  to  sinners  on  any 
ground  of  justice,  305.      Must  have  issued  an,  in  it  to  exercise  mercy  to  them, 

313,  319. 

Imposition,  of  hands  on  heads  of  sacrificed  animals,  by  offerers,  269-71 — by  High 
Priest,  364-6,  377. 

Imputation,  in  true  sense,  justification  by,  509-10. 

Incarnation,  reality  and  necessity  of,  161.  Notion  of,  of  Apollinans;  a  worse 
recent  one,  161-4.  Scriptural  teachings  concerning,  164-6.  Purpose  of,  166, 
1S4-8.     See  under  Christ.     Device  of,  231. 

Incompreliensibility,  128-30. 

Infidels,  reject  evidence,  etc.,  of  Divine  retributions  in  this  world,  6l.  Know 
nothing  of  the  mode  of  God's  existence,  unless  from  Scripture;  ascribe  what 
has  come  to  them  from  it  to  their  reason;  and  mistake  its  functions,  133-6. 
Their  notion  of  God's  love  for  man  of  no  weight  against  Scripture,  and  the 
only  evidence  of  it  they  can  have,  150-3.  Predicament  of  theistic  deniers  of 
revelation,  144-8.  Of  those  who  admit  only  parts  of  Scripture,  153-4.  Their 
skepticism,  what  no  evidence  of,  318.  No  middle  place  between  Christianity 
and  atheism  or  agnosticism,  321. 

Intelligence,  effect  on  the,  of  obedience,  34.      Also,  of  a  wrong  radical  choice,  36. 

Interests,  supreme  of  God  and  all  others,  45,  56.  Natural  consequences  no  expres- 
sion of  the,  of  God  and  His  loyal  society,  49.  God  has  no  right  of  counsel 
nor  liberty  against  the.  of  Himself  and  that  society,  84-7.  If  he  pardons  for 
mere  repentance,  would  proclaim  the,  etc.,  trifles,  99.  If  should  not  punish, 
would  make  nothing  of  the,  of  Himself,  etc.,  114.  Retributive  justice  guards 
the,  etc.,  227,  231.  Justice  in  the  law  binds  together  the  reciprocal,  etc.,  462. 
;^®*Mostly,  the  words,  rights,  dues,  interests  and  concerns  stand  together. 

Judgment,  final,  natural  consequenceism  conflicts  with,  62-3. 

Justice,  obligations  of  ethical,  6.  An  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law,  8,  12,  19.  How 
mankind  have  always  essentially  accorded  with  Cicero's  definition  of,  18. 
Market  and  courts  express  this  quality  of,  in  the  law,  as  moral  reason  teaches, 
18,  19.  In  principle,  is  universal,  if  to  one,  19.  20.  Moral  love  the  only  rad- 
ical ethical,  27,  107-10.  Quality  of,  in  the  law  makes  it  the  eternal  social 
bond  oi  intelligent  universe,  26-31.  God  can  neither  make,  nor  injustice  by 
Avill,  30.  Estimate  of,  by  mankind,  and  sunimutn  jus  a  perversion  of,  31-3. 
Principle  of  retributive,  same  as  of  ethical,  46-7.  Debt  of  penal  suffering  due 
to  God  from  sinners  solely  by,  in  the  law,  47  9.  Administering  rewards  and 
punishments  equally,  54-5.  No  quality  of,  in  natural  consequences,  55-8.  If 
no  demand  for  retributive  punishment,  etc.,  an  atonement  impossible,  76.  Dis- 
tributive, the  measure,  public,  tlie  end  of  retributive  punishment,  80.  God 
has  no  right  of  counsel  or  liberty  against,  84-5.  Retributive,  must  be  exactly 
according  to  desert,  88.  Ethical,  as  stated  by  Theodore  Parker,  and  remarks 
on,  96-7.  Results,  if  the.  of  the  law  be  not  maintained,  244-5.  Demand  of 
retributive,  against  sinners,   God's  wrath,   provisionally  suspended  by  expia- 


538  INDEX. 

tion,  246-7.  No  real,  in  God's  or  any  moral  nature,  etc.,  if  Bushnell's  notion 
of  propitiation  true,  249-53.  Relation  of  demand  of,  and  of  that  of  mercy, 
221-4.  If  no  sin,  no  demand  for  retributive,  nor  dictate  to  mercy,  but  ethical, 
would  enshrine  the  world,  224.  Thus  both  retributive,  and  mercy  occasioned 
by  sin,  224-6.  Scriptural  teaching  of  the  relation  between  them,  and  that 
fighting  the  former  is  also  the  latter,  228-9.  Atonement  must  accord  with, 
and  meet  retributive,  229-31.  Redemption  from  demands  of,  the  only  gate  of 
forgiveness,  281.  Atonement  a  measure  of  ethical,  to  God,  etc.,  and  a  sub- 
stitution for  retributive,  against  human  sinners,  286.  Question  of  the  atone- 
ment one  of  the  morality  of  God,  because  one  of  His,  293-5.  If  no,  as  retrib- 
utive, no,  as  ethical,  298.  Value  and  potency  of  Christ's  sufferings  to  meet 
demands  of,  299.  Whether  an  obligation  to  act  mercy  when  consistent  with, 
312-13.  No  creature  could  meet  demands  of,  against  sinners,  461. 
This  demand  of,  the  only  possible  necessity  for  Christ's  sufferings,  etc., 
472.  His  atonement,  as  related  to  God's,  473.  Public,  according  to  Govern- 
mental theory  of  atonement,  475-7.  Is  an  invented,  478.  What  real  public, 
is,  and  punishment  according  to  demands  of,  480-4.  Justification,  in  relation 
to  the,  of  the  law,  497.  Why  Christ  called  "the  righteous"  as  fulfilling  all, 
498,  359.  According  to  so-called  Moral  View  of  the  atonement,  God's  love  void 
of,  etc.,  513-5.  According  to  it,  the  demands  of,  no  obstacle  to  be  overcome 
by  His  love, 515,  517-9-  That  view  extinguishes  all  motives  from,  522-4. 
Justification,  includes  much  beyond  forgiveness,  494-6.  A  forensic  or  judicial 
act  of  God  for  its  objects,  493.  Whole  matter  of,  shown,  493-510.  In  proper 
sense,  imputation,  included  in,  50S-10.  The  atonement  a  basis  of  justice  for, 
345.  Mistake,  that  Rom.  5:12-19  relates  only  to,  346.  No,  according  to 
Moral  View  of  atonement,  522. 

Kant,  on  the  conception  of  straight,  22.     His  catagorical  imperative  no  law,  106. 

Distinction  between  reason  as  speculative  and  as  moral  maintained  by,  27. 
Kendrick,  quoted,  390-4. 
Kling,  dissent  from  on  II.  Cor.  5:21,  402. 

Landis,  R.  W.,  shows  bodily  death  not  penal,  331. 

Lange,  references  to,  203,  214,  208,  340,  342,  436,  434,  447,  364,  366,  430,  357. 

Law,  of  God,  source  of,  and  not  an  idea,  i.  In  all  moral  natures,  2.  Character- 
istics of,  3-8.  Hooker  on,  10.  Postulates  respecting,  12-18.  Reason,  as 
legislative,  gives  the,  as  the  sole  rule  of  moral  action,  21,  29.  Why  the,  is  the 
intertying  bond  of  moral  beings,  28.  No,  before  government,  and  is  not  properly 
relational,  but  social,  28.  What  truly,  and  confirmations  that  justice  is  an 
intrinsic  quality  of,  29-31.  A  wild  conceit  that  the,  is  automatic,  39-40,  64, 
70,  III.  End  of  the,  4,  44,  45.  As  but  one,  so  but  one  moral  government, 
68.  Only  motives  of  the,  to  obedience,  75.  In  men  essentially  the,  declared 
in  Scriptures,  106.  Imperative  of  the,  what  not,  106-7.  What  correct  psy- 
chology and  Scripture  teach  concerning  the,  107-10.  Is  a  unit,  and  purely 
social,  218.  Interbinds  all  moral  beings  into  one  society  with  God  in  and 
over  it,  219.  How  modified  towards  human  sinners,  2ig-2l.  A  kind  of 
schisim  in,  221-22.  God  must  act  by  and  administer  the,  225.  Not  created 
nor  changeable  by  will  of  God,  479.  With  justice  left  out,  would  not  be 
moral,  497.     Conception  of,  if  retributory  justice  is  denied,  517. 

Love,  moral,  the  matter  of  the  law,  2.  In  what,  consists,  3,  224.  Is  concrete  and 
social,  5.  What  involves  towards  every  one  of  right  character,  etc.,  6.  What, 
is  to  those  who  have  forfeited  rights  to  it,  and  to  some  sentient  creatures,  7.  To 
whom  enjoined  by  the  law,  13-4.  In  full  measure  to  any  always  perfectly 
obedient,  as  to  Christ,  14-7.  In  modified  measures  to  all  renewed  to  obedi- 
ence, and  the  rights  it  creates,  14-5.  In  a  more  modified  sense  to  exercisers  ot 
natural  affection,  and  to  benefactors,  from  objects  of  either,  15-7.  All  pos- 
sible, due  to  God,  17-8.  Must  be  just,  to  all  having  a  right  or  rights  to  it, 
19,  20.  Rendering,  the  only  real  ethical  jxistice  to  such,  27.  Not  oived  nor 
due  to  any,  if  justice  not  an  intrinsic  quality  of  the  law,  29,  30.  Rendering, 
to  God  and  others  is  paying  Him  and  them  their  due,  etc.,  44.  End  of,  and 
of  justice  in  the  law  the  same,  46.     Refusing  to  God  and  men  the,  due  them 


INDEX.  539 

creates  a  correlative  due  to  them  of  retributive  suffering,  47-8.  What  essen- 
tially, is  not,  64-6,  513.  Scriptural  teachings  concerning,  107-8.  The  only 
radical  virtue,  109-10.  By  whom  oived,  to  whom  due,  and  what  true  of  con- 
trary moral  action,  114.  A  unit  towards  every  ever-obedient  one,  218-9. 
How  divided  towards  human  sinners,  219-22.  How  God's  mercy  to  sinners 
differs  from  His  love  to  the  ever-obedient,  222.  What  towards  men,  if  they 
had  never  sinned,  224-6.  In  itself  not  vicarious,  270-3.  Obligation  to  love 
moral  natures  as  such  always  assumed  and  affirmed  among  men,  317.  What 
so-called  Moral  View  of  atonement  makes  of  God's,  513-6.  Of  any,  known 
only  by  its  manifestations,  515.  Effect  of  view  named  of  His,  on  all  essential 
truths  and  facts,  517-22.  How  this  view  affects  motives  against  sin  and  to 
obedience — to  repentance  and  faith,  522-4. 
Lowth,  his  rendering  first  half  of  Is.  53:4,  407.     Of  beginning  of  v.  7,  418. 

Man,    only  law   of    development   and   progress   in,    in   sin,    145-8.      Is  of  two 

essences,  133.     A  body  without  a  soul  not  a,  161-3.     God's  creation  of,  171-3. 

Why  God  created,foreknowing  all  that  would  be  true  of  him,  170-3,  174-184. 

Difference  between  aigels  and,   169,  178,  179.     Keystone  order  of  creation, 

171-3. 
Ma^ee,  reference  to  in  Work  of,   "On  Atonement  and  Sacrifice,"  361,  362,  367, 
"368,  370,  373,  374,  375.  378  twice,  383,  399,  408,  409  twice,  410  twice,  420,  422, 

427,  435-  ^      „ 

Martineau,  James,  quoted,  70. 

Maurice,  383. 

Mediatorship,  of  Christ,  232-5,  205,  299,  301,  393,  398,  499. 

Mercy,  God's  only  love  towards  sinners,  7,  14,  221-2,  313.  Impossible,  if  natural 
consequences  of  moral  action  its  only  retributions,  56.  Plan  and  execution  of 
redemption  necessarily  mere,  and  grace,  92.  Against  nature  of,  if  the  Spirit 
does  not  exert  all  the  power  He  consistently  can,  192-3.  As  impartial  as  jus- 
lice,  194,  199.  God's  disposition  of,  alike  to  save  all,  195.  The  love  due  to 
the  ever-obedient  modified  to,  towards  sinners,  243,  222-4.  Substitution  gives 
full  flow  to  abundance  of  God's,  towards  sinners,  207,  246,  255-6.  No  dictate 
to,  affer  the  end  of  probation,  221.  Not  properly  an  attribute  of  God,  but 
occasioned  iowT^xAs  sinners  by  their  sin,  223-9.  Subordinate  to,  and  restricted 
by,  demand  of  retributive  justice,  227.  The  atonement  was  from  God's,  not 
to  make  Him  merciful,  235.  Both  Father  and  Son  acted  from,  to  man  in 
making  the  atonement,  269,  31 1.  Was  made  from  opulence  of  God's,  to  meet 
the  only  occasion  for  one,  etc.,  273.  All  mankind  alike  objects  of,  279.  The 
atonement  for  all,  or  would  not  accord  with  the  nature  of,  and  this  defined, 
2Sr.  Why  providing  it  ineffable,  to  man,  289.  How  justice  and,  were  wedded  by 
the  atonement,  290-I.  The  atonement  at  once  the  Keystone  of  the  arch,  etc., 
and  the  channel  for  the  river  of  God's,  to  mankind,  298-300.  Defined;  its  aim 
restricted,  and  not  social  as  justice  is.  305.  From  pure,  that  God  forgives,  etc., 
509.     What  the  so-called  Moral  View  makes  of  His,  519. 

Merit,  ideas  of,  and  of  demerit  relative,  88-90.  Of  Christ's  obedience  through 
life  infinite,  504-10. 

Millon,  John,  lines  from  his  Comus,  43.  Reference  to  his  Par.  Post,  Book  III., 
near  beginning,  82.  Lines  from  same  Book,  205-16,  258.  Lines  from  Book 
IX.,  782,  784,  247.  Also  1000-1004,327.  Also  1130,1131,328.  Reference 
to  his  last  two  Books  of  Par.  Lost,  Samson  Agonisles,  lines  667-709,  335.  Tar. 
Lost,  Book  X.,  lines  824-27,  336. 

Miracles,  God's  interventions  and  manifestations  must  largely  consist  in  and  in- 
volve, 149-50,  157,  166. 

Moll,  on  Heb.  9:11-15— ransom-price  of  Christ's  blood,  452.  On  Christ's  exalta- 
tion, 387.     Mistake  of,  257.     On  Heb.  2:7,  178. 

Morgan,  Prof.  John,  his  views  on  the  atonement  rejected,  403. 

Morality,  impossible,  if  justice,  both  ethical  and  retributive,  is  denied,  76.  If 
obedience  not  a  good  in  itself,  and  sin  not  an  evil  in  itself,  can  be  no,  90.  Of 
God,  291,  460-2. 

Moral  action,  that  required  by  the  law,  and  what,  2,  3.  Is  concrete  and  social,  5. 
Prudence   may  or  may  not  be,  72.     Two  kinds  of,  and  of  desert  created  by 


540 


INDEX. 


them,  89.  Merit  or  demerit  of,  pertains  to  actors,  90.  Instinctive  or  natural 
love  not,  115.  Inscrutable  power  of  will  in  moral  beings  to  arbitrate  their 
own,  196  7.  Greatest  provisions  possible  made  to  bring  men  to  change 
their  wrong  for  right,  287.        * 

Moral  society  and  system,  questions  concerning  the  law  and  these  identical,  2. 
Justice  in  the  law  makes  it  the  eternal  basis  of  the,  28,  462.  Moral  beings 
created  to  be  a,  74,  182.  God  necessarily  included  Himself  in,  93.  He  must 
punish  sinners,  or  practically  war  against  the  universal,  114.  In  creating  moral 
beings,  God  assumed  obligations  to  govern  them  according  to  the  law  and  the. 
115.  Where  the,  is  founded,  116.  Facts  demonstrative  of  a  universal,  with 
God  in  and  over  it,  15S,  310.  God  can  deal  with  none  regardless  of  His  and 
their  relations  to  all  in  the,  159.  Penal  suffering  for  the  great  social  end  oi  the, 
221.  Sin  positive  injustice  to  the,  including  God,  225.  To  exer- 
cise mercy  without  satisfying  justice  would  destroy  the  entire,  227.  God 
responsible  to  His  own  and  all  conscience  in  the  entire,  to  govern  is  in  per- 
fect ethical  justice,  229..  Value  and  efficiency  of  Christ's  sufferings  to  secure 
the  ends  of  justice  and  mercy  to  God  and  the,  263.  All  sinners  alike  related 
to  God  and  the,  279.  All  sinners  out  of  and  in  conflict  with  the,  285. 
God  bound  by  every  principle  of  the,  to  be  Ruler,  490.  If  so-called 
Moral  View  of  atonement  true,  God's  love  is  regardless  of  the,  513.  11 
this  View  true,  mercy  no  mover  of  God  to  fulfill  demands  of  ethical  justice 
to  the,  520.  Nothing  in  view  named  consistent  with  the  law  and  the  uni- 
versal, 525-6. 

Moral  t>eii2gs  or  natures,  when  become  moral  actors  or  agents,  13.  How  only 
denied  that  men  are,  or  that  God  is  a,  18.  All  tendencies  of  moral  action, 
from  social  nature  of,  44.  The  qualities  of,  essential  to  their  being  such,  69, 
70.  God  could  not  create,  without  natural  freedom  of  will,  etc.,  81.  The 
nature,  not  the  relations  of,  the  ground  of  their  mutual  obligations,  etc.,  88. 
God's  moral  government  founded  in  all,  93.  For  Him  to  create,  the  highest 
kind  of  moral  action,  and  why,  115.  Rational  alone  are,  and  how  God  made 
man  a,  136.  Applications  of  the  law  to,  numerous  and  various  as  their  rela- 
tions, 119.     The  redeemed  of  mankind  will  outrank  all  others,  307. 

Motives,  sanctions  of  the  law  its,  to  obedience  and  against  sin,  52,  74-5.  Natural 
consequences  too  imbecile  as,  to  be  sanctions,  52.  If  these  the  only  retribu- 
tions, are  incomparably  less,  to  obedience  and  against  sin,  than  positive  ones 
would  be,  57.  God  bound  to  make  the,  to  the  one  and  against  the  other  the 
weightiest  possible,  58.  Could  not  make  greater,  than  He  has,  59.  Without 
the  atonement,  no,  under  the  law  to  bring  sinners  to  repentance,  98.  Men 
cannot  act  morally  without,  78,  96.  No,  in  natural  consequences  to  bring  to 
repentance,  etc.,  123-4.  A  limitation  of  probation  a  radical  and  chief,  to 
bring  to  repentance,  126.  If  no  I'evelalion,  God  has  placed  no,  before  sin- 
ners to  bring  to  repentance,  144-8.  The,  embodied  in  Scripture,  the  weight- 
iest possible,  122,  287.  Nine  positions  showing  the  weightiest  conceivable,  to 
induce  men  to  abandon,  etc.,  188.  Agency  of  Spirit  to  bring  wills  to  yield 
to  the,  before  them,  192-3.  Knowledge  of  the  atonement  a  mighty,  in  itself, 
184.  Natural  freedom  to  begin  and  continue  right  choice  in  view  of,  339. 
Typical  sacrifices  supplied  pious  Israelites  with  inspiring,  etc  ,  381.  How  so- 
called  Moral  View  of  atonement  affects  motives,  292. 

Mysteries,  being  and  substance  impenetrable,  to  man  and  all  finite  minds,  128- 
9.  The  being  and  mode  of  existence  of  God,  etc.,  are,  but  this  no  reason 
for  not  believing  them,  T30  or  138. 

Mulley;  Julius,  on  difference  between  punishment  and  discipline,  referred  to,  61. 

Napoleon,  saying  of,  that  God  is  always  on  side  of  strongest  battalions,  32. 

Nagelsback,  his  comment  on  Is.  53:9  referred  to,  419.  Reference  to,  420.  Mistake 
of,  same  as  Hengstenberg's,  on  sabhal  \x\  Is.  53:11,  422. 

Naturalism,  notion  of  automatic  law,  40,  53,  74. 

Necessity,  moral,  for  a  moral  system  in  the  moral  nature  of  man,  49.  On  God  to 
inflict  punishment  on  sinners,  whence,  83.  The,  on  God  to  do  this,  one  of 
moral  nature,  88  Notion  that  He  can  pardon  for  mere  repentance  denies  the, 
for   an   atonement,  etc.,    100.     Absolute,   for   the   mission  and   atonement  ol 


2ND  EX.  541 

Christ  in  order  to  save  men,  114.  Denial  of  a  moral,  excluding  God  from 
dealing  with  sinners  personally,  regardless  of  the  universal  society,  prepos- 
terous, 158. 

Noetiis,  notion  of,  that  God  is  impassible,  300. 

Non-resistants,  God  and  all  good  beings  such,  if  must  enter  into  sympathy  with 
and  go  to  cost  for  all  sinners  without  limits,  loi,  238,  488,  492,  513. 

Obedience,  to  God's  law  alone  constitutes  right  character,  2,  14.  Is  true  moral  love 
to  God  and  all,  13.  What,  disobedience  what,  and  natural  consequences  of 
each,  34-7.  Both  radically  to  God,  49.  All,  social,  and  disobedience  anti- 
social, no.  Of  Christ  in  no  sense  an  atonement,  but  He  made  His  in,  to  God, 
445,  283.  His,  no  more  for  Himself  than  His  atoning  sufferings  and  death, 
but  for  inankind,  503-4.     Value  and  merit  of  His,  505. 

Obligation,  how  imposed,  and  ground  of,  5,6.  Of  ethical  justice,  what;  one  rad- 
ical, many  specific;  and  distinct  to  mercy  and  benevolence,  6.  No,  of  justice 
on  God  to  any  sinner,  but  on  sinners  reciprocally,  7.  Each  knows  himself 
under  an,  of  justice  to  render  moral  love  to  every  other,  as  his  due,  etc.,  13- 
4.  Statements  respecting,  14-20.  On  God  to  punish  human  sinners,  or  to 
provide  an  atonement  for  them,  49,  115.  Demand  ior  Just  punishment  of 
sinners  puts  an  infinite,  on  God,  to  comply  with  it,  or  etc.,  292,  294.  He  must 
have  felt  an  infinite,  on  Him  to  provide  a  substitution,  310-11.  Whether  is  an, 
to  exercise  mercy  when  consistent  with  justice,  312.  What  maintaining  jus- 
tice is  maintaining,  to  do,  462.  God  Ruler  by  an  infinite,  491,  513-4.  An 
invented  justice,  law,  and  government  could  lay  no,  on  any  to  obey,  5'7~9- 

0/i/irtMJ^w,  labored  in  vain  to  set  aside  Tholuck's  view  of  John  1:29  against  adverb 
away,  430.     On  huper,  436. 

Omnipotence,  none  made  holy  by,  at  death,  104.  Power  exerted  on  men  by  the 
Spirit  not  physical,  192. 

Omniscience,  God's,  natural,  eternal,  and  independent  of  His  will,  189.  Causes 
nothing,  190.  The  basis  of  His  special  acts  of  election  and  predestination, 
etc.,  202-4. 

Oosterzee,  Van,  on  meaning  of  huper  in  Titus  2:14, 450.  His  comment  on  I.  Tim. 
2:6  referred  to,  468. 

Outrain,  references  to,  361,  366,370. 

Owen,  referred  to,  409. 

Pardon,  see  Forgiveness. 

Parker,  Theodore,  quoted,  96. 

Passover,  why  omitted  in  examining  Levitical  Sacrifices,  383. 

Paul,  character  of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  107,  217.  His  showing  of  the  mean- 
ing of  Gen.  2:17,  351.  Found  Greek  verb  diKadu,  etc.,  adapted  to  express 
the  full  restoration  of  believers  to  harmony  with  justice  of  the  law,  493. 

Peace-offerings,  mode  and  purpose  of,  376.      Had  an  expiatory  character,  377-8. 

Pearson  on  Creed,  referred  to,  166. 

Penalty,  the  punishment  for  sin  demanded  by  the  justice  of  the  law,  84,  91,  249; 
and  often. 

Person,  a  human,  132-3.  Reason  constitutes  a,  and  Latin  origin  of,  of  no  impor- 
tance, 136.     Three,  in  Godhead,  130-49. 

Perversion,  of  moral  nature,  from  Adam,  170,  336-8,  340. 

Phenomena,  only,  not  substance  perceived,  128-30.  Difference  between  mind  and 
matter,  how  shown  by,  129,  133.  How  each  knows  himself  not  of  one,  but 
of  two  substances  or  essences,  133. 

Philosophers,  of  Greece  and  Rome,  views  of  ablest  and  best  on  origin,  etc.,  of  the 
law,  in  note,  9-11.     Held  justice  the  sum  of  all  virtue,  35. 

P.'ans,  of  creation  and  redemption,  173-8,  181-2.  Best  required  God  to  create 
angels  and  men  He  knew  would  be  lost,  175,  178-80.  What  included  in,  of 
the  redemptive  measure,  184-6,  igo-i.  Both,  entirely  of  Himself,  198. 
His  omniscience  underlay  both,  201-2.  His  mercy  towards  man,  purpose, 
election,  and  predestination  all  embraced  in  His,  of  redemption,  204. 
Plato,  reference  to,  in  note,  li. 
Pope,  lines  from,  109. 


4Sa 


INDEX. 


Posterity,  of  Adam,  his  relation  to;  and  his  trial-action  really  theirs,  336-44. 

Prayer,  relation  of  notion  of  natural  consequences  to,  and  to  thanksgiving,  524. 

Predestination,  not  antecedent  to  and  independent  of  the  redemptive  measure, 
194-5,  '99>  204-8.  In  what  consists,  passages  teaching,  and  its  ends,  206. 
Not  first,  but  last  in  the  order  of  God's  plan  of  redemption,  and  Augustine's 
notion  of,  groundless,  207.     Meaning  of  in  Rom.  8:29,  30  shown,  208-n. 

Preexisience,  of  souls,  notion  of,  referred  to,  181. 

Presignifications,  of  conscience,  39.     See  Conscience. 

Presumption,  none  valid  against  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  132-3.  Nor  against 
any  doctrine  of  Christianity,  148  9. 

Priest,  office  of,  Aaronic  in  Levitical  Law,  379.  Typical  of  Christ  as,  379,  383. 
Nimiber  of  times  Christ  called  a,  and  a  Hig;h,  in  Epistle  to  Hebrews,  386. 
Was  a,  after  order  of  Melchizedek,  388.     Anti-type  of  Levitical,  395-6. 

Probation,  man  on  a  gracious,  during  this  life,  7,  76.  Limited  by  law  of  habit,  36. 
Notion  of  an  indefinite,  after  death,  66.  God  cannot  execute  full  retributive 
punishment  till  after,  ends,  72-3,  102-3.  Even  a  semblance  of,  impos- 
sible, if  God  changes  character  of  sinners  by  omnipotence,  104.  No,  after 
death  for  any  who  die  in  their  sins,  122-7.  Of  mankind,  first  pair  alone  could 
have  had  a  legal,  180.  The,  of  their  descendants  only  a  gracious  one,  etc., 
180-I.  Christ  to  go  through  another  representative  legal,  for  the  race, 
185.  Question  of  salvation  determined  by  each  during  his,  under  light  he  has, 
190.  All  who  exhaust  their,  in  sin,  etc.,  punished  as  they  deserve,  199. 
Substitutional  sufferings  of  Christ  secured  the  gracious,  for  all,  etc.,  259, 
282.  Because,  continues  through  life,  conditions  also  do,  286-8.  No,  without 
freedom  of  v/ill,  338  9.  All  have  a  fair,  343.  Both  Adam  and  Christ  had 
a  legal,  505. 

Progress,  no  law  of,  in  man,  in  a  moral  and  religious  sense,  since  Adam  fell,  146-7. 

Propitiation,  of  God,  is  by  expiation,  and  defined,  237.  Why  Christ's  sufferings, 
etc.,  is  a,  of  God  towards  human  sinners,  246-8.  Any  imagined,  without 
expiation,  a  prodigious  conceit,  248-9.  Is  self-contradictory  and  absurd,  250-3. 
Of  God  towards  human  sinners  is  His  reconciliation  to  them,  254-7.  Is 
the  effect  of  expiation,  and  how  Christ  is  the,  445-7. 

Putiishment,s\n  creates  desert  of,  from  God,  15,46.  Sense  of  desert  of,  pervades 
minds  of  sinners,  36.  Sense  of  guilt  causes  fear  of,  41.  Additional  proofs 
that  positive,  is  the  only  real  retribution,  43.  What  conscience  affirms  that 
sinners  deserve,  46-7.  As  rewarding,  so  punishing  must  be  j-oczV?/,  49.  How 
God  has  revealed  to  all  that  He  will  administer,  59.  Scriptures  throng  with 
teachings  that  He  will,  60.  Often  inflicted  in  this  world,  61.  Absurd 
that  God  must  not  inflict  retributive,  because  love  forbids,  66.  Ethical  jus- 
tice to  God  and  all  good  beings  demands,  positive,  of  sinners,  76.  Retributive, 
never  disciplinary,  but  penal,  and  its  end,  80,  87.  Duration  of,  82--4. 
What  impossible,  if  justice  does  not  demand  retributive,  of  sinners,  76-7.  Fur- 
ther reasons  why  God  must  inflict  exact,  on  all  sinners,  unless,  etc.,  93-4. 
No  one  can  deserve  reward  or,  for  the  personal  action  of  anotlier,  264.  What 
the,  of  sinners  is  to  secure,  269-70.  Christ  not  punished  for  sins  of 
men,  but  voluntarily  equivalently  suffered  their,  in  their  stead,  290.  What 
made  the  demand  for  their  just,  29I-3.  To  bear  sin,  iniquity,  etc.,  is  to  suf- 
fer its,  407-13.  That  Christ's  bearing  iniquity  and  sin  in  Is.  53:11,  12,  means 
bearing  the,  of,  shown,  421-2.  The  atonement  could  be  for  sins  only  to  rescue 
from  necessity  of  suffering  the,  deserved  by  them,  460.  Neither  our  Lord 
nor  Apostles  believed  natural  consequences  of  sin  its,  494.  If  sin  deserves  no 
positive,  from  God,  what  follows,  521-2.  In  all  Scripture,  no  intimation  that, 
has  any  limit  of  duration,  527. 

Purpose,  of  God,  Scripture  concerning,  204.  Relation  of,  to  election  and  predes- 
tination, 204-8.  Meaning  of  in  Rom.  8:28,  209.  Different  one  in  Rom.  9:11, 
211-15. 

Race,  human,  consciously  sinners,  144.  A  Saviour  must  be  one  of  the,  169.  Angels 
not,  men  are  a,  and  relation  of  Adam  to,  169,  178.  The  human,  the  con- 
summate order  of  moral  beings,  170-3.  The  Eternal  Son  inserted  by  incar- 
nation into  our,  173.  Alternative  respecting  the  creation  of  our,  176.  Peril 
of  all  in  a,  why  greater   than   of  beings  created  separately,    179.     Whether 


INDEX.  543 

just,  etc.,  in  God  to  create  our,   so  constituted  and  related  to  Adam,  180-4. 

Ransom,  use  and  meaning  of  tlie  term,  427,  449-454,  467,  471. 

Raphelius,  on  htiper,  quoted  by  Magee  and  Crawford,  435,  438. 

Reason,  moral  or  practical,  the  law  in  and  from,  I.  Imposes  obligation  by  its 
imperative  of  the  law,  5,  6.  Is  both  speculative  and  moral;  and  its  functions 
as  moral,  12.  Two  of,  as  moral,  legislative  and  judicial,  21-3.  According 
to,  as  judicial,  what  true  of  the  terms  right  and  wrong,  when  related  to 
action,  22.  Distinction  between,  as  speculative  and  as  moral,  a  very  old  one, 
27.  What,  gives  as  each,  27,  29.  Moral,  deposed  from  sovereignty  by  sin, 
35.  Disobedience  obscures  the  light  and  sight  of,  as  moral,  36,  69,  144.  God 
bound  by  mandate  of  His  own  moral,  etc.,  75.  Created  all  moral  natures 
with  His  law  in  and  from  their  moral,  69,  93.  As  speculative,  affirms 
difference  between  mind  and  matter,  135.  Functions  of,  as  moral,  especially 
respecting  religious  and  moral  truths  and  facts,  135-6.  Only  by  the  addi- 
tion of,  to  a  creature  that  it  becomes  a  person,  136.  No  contradiction  of,  in 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  148-9.  Can  know  nothing  about  the  real  love  of 
God  or  of  any  being  by,  15 1-3.  Of  Adam  controller  of  all  his  susceptibilities 
and  powers.  327.     Not  after  his  sin,  328. 

Reconciliation,  of  God  to  man,  same  as  His  propitiation  tov/ards  them,  and  source 
of  men's  to  Him,  254-7.  Absurd  that  the  atonement  was  to  reconcile  %\nnzK% 
to  God,  not  Him  to  them,  262-3.     (See  Propitiation.) 

Redemption,  plan  of,  devised  by  God,  198.  Based  on  His  omniscience,  202.  By 
blood  and  death  of  Christ,  and  meaning  of  the  term,  393.  Meaning  of,  in 
Rom.  3:24,  25,  447.     In  four  other  passages,  449  52. 

Reformers,  why  denied  any  obligation  on  God  to  provide  an  atonement,  303. 

Regeneration,  subjects  of,  the  only  children  of  God,  1 17.  No,  except  under 
agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  191 -7,  256,  285,  293,  206.  His  operation  on  the 
mind  in  effecting,  200,  206.  Distinct  from  justification  and  sanctification, 
508.  Not  done  by  Christ,  nor  by  His  manifestation  of  love,  obedience,  or 
atonement,  in  any  sinner,  524. 

Remission,  of  sins,  same  as  forgiveness,  and  what  it  does,  493-4.  Ts  only  on 
ground  of  the  atonement,  497.     Implied  and  included  in  justification,  508-10. 

Remorse,  sense  of  guilt  often  fills  the  mind  with,  36.  Produced  by  conscience  in 
sinners,  and  not  retributive,  39,  41. 

Repentance,  in  what  consists,  97.  Why  no,  if  no  redemptive  measure,  97-9)  191- 
2.  Would  be  no  reparation  for  evil  of  sin,  if  could  be  acted,  99,  100.  No, 
in  Hades,  124.  Spirit  operates  to  bring  sinners  to,  but  their  will  determines 
their  yielding  to  Him  or  not,  191-201. 

Representative,  thus  a  substitute,  Christ  a,  of  mankind,  169,  246.  Adam  neces- 
sarily, of  his  posterity,  169,  180,  343.  Christ  their,  by  incarnation,  235.  Suf- 
fered and  died  for  them  as  their,  259,  263,  267  9.  Did  so  as,  for  all  alike  as  sin- 
ners, 194,  282,  284-5,  299,  315.  Had  a  perfect  right  to  become  their,  288-9. 
The  second  liead  and,  of  the  race,  343.  Was  their,  by  agreement  with  the 
Father,  444.  Essential  point  in  doctrine  of  atonement  that  He  was  the,  of 
mankind,  500,  503  9. 

Resurrection,  what  true  of  bodies  of  the  righteous  at  the,  186  Why  their  death 
gain  on  account  of  the,  331.  Of  liodies  of  all  men  conflicts  with  notion  that 
bodily  death  is  any  part  of  the  penalty  of  sin,  355. 

Retributions,  what  not,  and  what  are,  38-9.  Always  recognized  and  attested  by 
mankind,  39.  What  conscience  presignifies  respecting,  42.  Social,  from  God 
demanded  by  nature  of  the  law,  etc.,  44.  Exactly  according  to  actual  deserts 
as  seen  by  God,  54,  75-6,  84.  What  conscience  and  Scripture  always  point 
to  and  attest  as,  73,  120.  I'assages  which  teach  that  future  will  be  for  "the 
deeds  done  in  the  body,"  1201,  124.  If  no  positive,  God  can  exercise  no 
mercy  in  forgiving  sin,  229.  This  life  not  one  of,  272.  Of  reward  and  pun- 
ishment essential  to  a  moral  system,  291.  All  motives  from  justice  and  posi- 
tive, extinguished  by  so-called  Moral  View,  522-4. 

Revelation,  inspired,  teaching  of,  concerniiii';  the  Law,  3.  Man,  without, 
incompetent  to  know  the  mode  of  God's  existence,  133-4.  With  the 
Christian,  men  have  better  knowledge  of  God  than  heathen  ever  had,  135-6. 
What  true,  if  Scriptures  are  an,  139.  Denial  of  Trinity  is,  and  leads  to, 
denial  of  Scriptures  as  an,  143.     Predicament  of  Theists  who  deny  them  as 


544 


INDEX. 


an,  144.  Of  those  having  only  a  maimed  belief  in  them  as  an,  153.  What  a, 
must  be  fronted  against,  149.  Was  given  for  no  ends  that  imposture  could 
aim  at,  and  for  what,  149-50.  Without,  God's  providential  courses  dark 
riddles,  152. 

Reward,  of  Christ  for  His  obedience  till  death,  423,  506. 

Right,  see  Idea  and  Law.  When,  both  natural  and  moral,  of  one  are  perfect,  14. 
Natural  and  moral,  of  whom  to  love  of  God  and  others  are  modified,  15.  True 
"idea  of,"  22-5.  (See  under  Bushnell,  on  idea  of.)  When,  identical  with, 
and  when  diflers  ^yo\\\just,  27.  Objects  of  the  love  required  by  the  law  have 
a  natural,  to  it,  30.  All  guilty  of  sin  have  forfeited  their,  to  the  love  of  God, 
46,  83.  Justice  is  rendering  to  all  who  have,  according  to  them,  47.  The,  of 
Father  and  Son,  to  act  their  parts  in  redemption  absolute,  288-90. 

Righteousness,  obedience  to  the  law,  and  why  so  called,  20.  Of  God,  Rom.  1:17, 
what  not,  and  what  is,  501-4.     Justification  on  the  ground  of  this,  504-8. 

Sacrifices  by  Levitical  Law,  and  of  heathen  from  earliest  times,  all  offered  as 
expiatory,  239.  Origin  of,  239-41.  Originated  by  God,  366-70.  When,  370- 
3.  Adamic,  expiatory,  373-6.  Peace-ofl'erings  and  all  sacrifices  of  the 
Levitical,  expiatory,  376-9.  Burnt,  offered  by  whom,  etc.;  and  among 
heathen  before  and  after  Christ  came,  375.  All  animal,  typical  of  Christ  and 
His  atoning  death,  379. 

Sanctions,  of  the  law,  what,  52,  74-5.  Natural  consequences,  why  not,  53-5,  72. 
Are  momentous  motives,  durnig  probation,  to  obedience  and  against  sin,  74-6. 

Sanciification,  election  is  to,  as  well  as  to,  etc.,  206-10.     Is  by  Holy  Spirit,  508. 

Scliaff,  on  Rom.  5:16,  as  to  meaning  of  (^tnaiuua,  344.  His  estimate  of  Paul  and 
his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  217.  On  the  aorist  in  Rom.  5:12,  340.  On 
meaning  of  "world"  in  Tohn  3-16,465.  Notes  of,  in  Lange's  Comm.  on 
Romans,  on  the  Greek  verb  and  words  from  diKrj,  501. 

Schlegel,  William  von,  quoted,  334. 

Selfishness,  not  self-love,  and  defined,  4.  When  men  sin,  they  know  their  end 
that  of,  4.  Against  any  is  injustice,  and,  la  principle,  is  against  all,  19,  20. 
If  God  and  others  have  no  right  to  moral  love,  can  be  no,  nor  injustice  against 
them,  30.  Has  a  Titanic  progeny  of  special  oulbrealcs,  48,  94.  All  sin  is, 
and  repentance  is  turning  from,  to  moral  love,  97.  The  law  has  no  motives 
to  bring  sinners  to  renounce  their,  98.  Urgencies  to,  through  childhood  and 
youth,  and  confirming  them  in,  309-10.  To  deny  the  social-moral  character 
of  the  law  and  of  moral  natures  makes  even,  impossible,  182. 

Sehvyn,  Rev.  William,  D.  D  ,  on  Scptuagint  translation  of  the  Old  Testament 
used  in  the  New,  401. 

Seneca,  on  hope  of  immortality,  quoted,  334. 

Sensibility,  allied  to  moral  reason  when  imposing  obligation  and  in  conscience,  12, 
69.  God  a  moral  being  of  infinite,  17,246,301,312.  Sin  enthrones,  in  the  place 
of  moral  reason,  35.  Of  conscience  blunted  and  often  well-nigh  paralyzed, 
36.  An  essential  attribute  of  a  moral  nature,  38,  69.  During  the  novitiate  of 
moral  beings,  is  extremely  susceptible,  58,  179.  If  no  expiation,  propitiation 
relates  simply  to  God's,  248.  The  impulse  in  God's,  to  provide  an  atonement, 
the  deepest /><'//« o-  ever  in  it,  230.  Adam's,  without  perverted  susceptibilities 
till  he  sinned,  327.  His  sin  exasperated  the,  of  his  conscience,  and  reason 
lost  control  of  it,  328.  A  new  heart  involves  the,  508  Emotional  love  a  pro- 
duct of  sympathetic,  513. 

Self-recovery,  from  sin,  impossible,  82,  145, 

Septitagint,  referred  to,  and  its  relation  to  the  Greek  of  the  N.  T.  set  for!^,  309- 
403. 

Shakespeare,  quoted,  515,  518. 

Shedd,  reference  to  his  History  of  Doctrines,  166. 

5z«,  violation  of  the  law,  2.  End  of,  opposite  that  of  obedience,  and  known  by 
its  conscious  actor,  4.  What  forfeited  by,  5,  6,  13,  15,  20,  28,  35,  40,  46,  51, 
53,  58.  Does  not  change  essential  nature,  and  is  disobedience,  15.  Is  injus- 
tice to  all  moral  beings.  19.  Way  of,  a  down  grade  by  the  law  of  habit,  36. 
Enormities  of,  indurate  the  sensibility  of  conscience,  41.  Natural  conse- 
quences of,   no  expression  of  social  evil  and  injury  of,  53.     How  is  like  an 


INDEX.  545 

appalling  epidemic  or  contagion,  58.  Is  the  supreme  monstrosity  of  the  uni- 
verse, 81-2.  An  evil  in  itself,  88.  What  it  does  respecting  God,  93,  97-8, 
337.  Is  anti-social,  injustice  and  wrong  against  the  universal  society,  no. 
Meaning  of  Christ's  appearing  the  second  time  without,  396.  Septuagint  uses 
the  term,  144  times  to  mean  sin-offering,  399-403.  Used  by  Paul  in  same  sense, 
II.  Cor.  5:21,  402.     Meaning  of  bearing  sin,  407-432. 

Sinojfering,  361-4.     Why  two  goats  for  a,  on  day  of  great  annual  sacrifice,  377"^. 

Skepticism,  no  evidence  of  superiority  of  mind  in  any  respect,  etc.,  318. 

Social,  the  law  and  the  nature  of  moral  beings  are,  5,  19,  28,  49,  56,  57.  (See  Law.) 

Son  of  God,  teachings  of  the  Scripture  concerning  the,  130-2.  (See  Incarnation.) 
Purposes  for  which  He  became  incarnate,  166-8.  Entire  part  of,  in  redemp- 
tive measure,  included  in  the  eternal  plan,  184  6.  Eternal  agreement  between, 
and  the  Father  as  to  their  parts  in  the  redemptive  measure,  288-9.  Had  a 
perfect  right  to  l^ecome,  do,  and  suffer  all  he  did,  288-9. 

SohI,  of  Adam,  as  created,  32^-7.     Effects  in,  of  his  sin,  328-9. 

Sovereignty  of  God,  what  true  of,  as  related  to  man's  freedom,  194-5-  In  what 
consists,  197-9.  Nothing  in,  inconsistent  with  the  moral  system,  nor  with 
man's  freedom,  200-1. 

Spencer,  notion  of,  as  to  animal  sacrifices  in  Levitical  Law,  369. 

Stuart,  Prof  Moses,  quoted,  428. 

Substitution,   alternative  of  retribution  for  sinners,  81,  83,  97,  29  rovisional 

for  all,  to  be  made  actual  for  all  who  comply  with  the  conditions,  244-5, 
259,  280.  Animal  sacrifices  of  Levitical  Law,  instead  of  the  penal  suffering 
and  death  of  its  violators,  258,  377.  What  the,  of  Christ  conditionally  saves 
sinners  from,  265.  Condition  of  the  actual  application  of  the,  to  any,  and 
what  true,  if  Christ's  not  simply  provisional  for  all,  280,  284-6.  Forgiveness 
makes  His,  actual,  but  not  absolute  till  the  end  of  probation,  286.  Absurdity 
of  objections  to  His,  for  mankind,  295.  I.';  "formal  ;md  literal"  no  more  than 
all  acts  and  measures  of  administration  must  be,  296.  What  His  suffering 
in  making  the,  need  not  exceed,  299.  What  Is.  53:4-12  shows  respecting  the, 
of  the  servant  of  God  for  the  deserved  punishment  of  men,  407-27.  Huper 
means  benefit  by,  434-58.  Necessity  for,  in  order  to  human  salvation,  439-44 
Redemption  by,  449-52.  Ransom  a,  449-54.  Christs's  sufferings  and  death 
could  be  for  no  other  purpose  than  a,  462.     Provisional  for  all  men,  465-8, 

471-4- 

Suffering,  punitive,  retributive,  due  to  God  and  the  universal  society  from  all  sin- 
ners, 40-9.  The  naturally  demanded  substitute  for  the  love  required  by  the 
law,  when  refused,  etc.,  48.  Debt  of,  owed  to  God,  etc.,  for  wrong  and 
injury  done  to  them,  85.  They  have  a  right  to  the,  of  sinners,  246,  219.  Of 
Christ  instead  of  the,  of  sinners,  248,  305.  Of  Christ  equivalent,  but  not 
equal  in  quantity  to  the,  of  all  human  sinners,  267.  End  of  His,  same  as  of 
the,  deserved  by  them,  265.  Why  His,  so  brief,  equivalent  to  the  deserved, 
of  all,  268-9.  H^'  'he  Representative  Substitute  of  all  in  His,  269,  284-5. 
His,  necessary  to  retrieve  men  from  necessity  of,  295,  315.  Why  His. 
inflicted  by  will  of  His  Father,  299.  Moral  value  and  potency  of  His,  far 
greater  than  of  the,  of  all  men,  and  vast  saving  of,  to  moral  beings, 
300.  Of  penal  retribution  not  till  after  bodily  death,  330.  Rom.  8:17-39 
involves  whole  philosophy  of  necessity  for  and  uses  of,  in  this  life,  331-5- 
Authors  quoted  on,  334-5. 

Supererogation,  impossible  for  man,  or  even  God,  316. 

Susceptibility,  amazing,  of  moral  natures  to  influence  of  each  other,  44  Of  no 
two  the  same  to  natural  consequences  of  their  moral  action,  51.  Of  Eve  and 
of  children,  etc.,  to  temptation,  309-10 

Syllogism,  of  anti-Trinitarians,  and  of  Trinitarians,  138. 

Symbols,  the  need  and  use  of,  354-5.  Cannot,  in  all  respects,  represent  their 
aniitypes,  381. 

Sympathy,  nothing  moral  in  merely  emotional,  sentimental  love  from,  63-4. 
Immoral  to  act  from,  alone  respecting  sinners,  247.  Suffering  of  mere,  with 
others  not  vicarious,  270-3. 

Szuedenborg,  his  notion  of  a  Trinity  of  essentials,  168. 


546  INDEX. 

Taylor,  N.  W.,  his  view  of  sin,  89-91. 

Tendencies,  of  both  right  and  wrong  action  whence,  44.  Natural  consequences 
no  expression  of  the  contagious  influence  and  terrible,  of  sin,  53,  75,  Of  sin 
to  infect  others  with  ever-extending  propagation,  58. 

Tennyson,  reference  to,  309. 

Theology,  the  bane  of,  43,  320.  Founding  morality  and,  on  the  sensibility,  64, 
The  basis  of  all  true  moral  philosophy  and,  what,  501.  Clamor  for  a  new, 
and  what  the  old,  13,512-3.  The  Church  neither  needs,  nor  will  have  a 
new,  and  why,  529- 

Tholuck,  on  meaning  of  huper,  436.     His  view  of  John   1:29  same  as  ours,  430, 

Tischendorf,  on  meaning  of  huper,  438. 

Townsend,  quoted  by  Bloomfield  on  John  1:29,  on  Scriptdral  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment, 432. 

Tradiicianisin,  why  true,  and  objections  answered,  322-5. 

Trench,  quotation  from,  regarding  Christ's  sufferings,  groundless,  468-71. 

Trinity,  see  God;  and  Cook,  Joseph. 

Trespass  or  Guilt-offering,  how  different  from  sin-offering,  etc.,  364-6. 

Tyler,  quotations  from  his  Theology  of  the  Greek  Poets  in  note,  8.  Same  work 
referred  to,  59. 

Universe,  of  moral  beings,  drawn  and  divided  by  two  opposite  ends,  4.  The 
rational,  interbound  into  one  society  with  God  at  its  head,  5.  God  had  an 
eternal  plan  of  the,  etc.,  173-8.  What  the  plan  was,  etc.,  175.  Either  the 
best,  or  the  only  one  possible,  177,  179,  182.     Included  the  Church,  186-8. 

Universalism,  no  support  for,  in  Rom.  5:19,  349. 

Utilitarianism,  the  law  not  a  rule  of,  107. 

Valkenariiis,  on  Greek  expression  "  to  die  for  any  one,"  435.  Also,  on  huper,  438. 
Value,  etc.,  of  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ,  244-5,  267,  269,  296,  299,  317,  505. 
Vicarious,  true  sense  of,  141,  266.    The  love  of  God  not,  and  when  action  required 

by  the  law  is,  170-1.     Prophets,  Christ  and  Apostles  did  not  teach  that  love 

is,  in  its  nature,  274-8.     (See  under  Bushnell.) 

Warburton,  many  places  in  his  "Divine  Legation  of  Moses"  show  the  common 
belief  of  the  heathen  in  future  punishment,  referred  to  in  note,  59. 

Washburn,  translator  of  Van  Oosterzee's  I.  Timothy,  notion  of,  that  Christ's  sub- 
stitution was  subjective,  434.  Quotes  Trench  to  support  the  groundless  posi- 
tion, 468. 

Williams,  Rev,  J.  M.,  reference  to,  162. 

Will,  moral  beings  have  power  of,  to  determine  or  arbitrate  their  own  choices,  etc., 
12.  The  actor  of  sin,  and  condition  of,  in  sin,  35.  Power  over  it  of  the  law 
of  habit,  35-6.  An  essential  attribute  of  moral  nature,  38.  (See  Choice.) 
Moral  love  essentially  intelligent  action  of  the,  63-4.  Without  motives,  the, 
cannot  act,  98,  122-3.  Moral  beings  can  by  their  own,  plunge  into  sin,  but 
never  extricate  themselves  from  it,  145.  Is  self-determining  in  view  of  mo- 
tives, etc.,  198.  Man's,  the  determmer  of  all  his  choices,  200.  Spirit's 
agency  never  breaks  over  the  shore-bound  of  the  freedom  of  man's,  201. 
Adam's,  as  he  was  created,  327. 

Winer,  on  meaning  of  huper,  435,  438. 

Wisdom,  vicarious  suffering  a  measure  of,  and  of  occasion,  271, 

Wordsworth,  reference  to  his  "Excursion"  respecting  the  benefits  of  affliction, 
335- 

Zaleucas,  substitution  by,  of  his  eye  for  one  of  his  son's,  rejected  as  an  illustration 
of  Christ's  substitution,  272. 


«  li'  -as     ^^^^  Due 

■TTi"'  'm  ■ 

-«*»*.-■ 

ir^ir 

pp*^l^^^^^" 

f) 

t  *''  <5  *l  #11  *l  #'  ■«  T  <^'  "S  «^  ' '  «'  ^.  «■  '■  '^   '•     *1  *i.  *l  'i  ■'i  U 

^  > >  ^K^  i >  -4 >  > ,^  .t ,f  .'f  .* r^ f  ,t ;f  ;t ,f  n^ ^*- -1 


^r.t.i.f 


f(Il'l#l-'.l-- 


•  *  »  ^^  '*  «>  V  *  V  ^.  .4  n 

■ .  •,  >  'I  u  'i  "4  'i,  ■*  i  •*  V  •  'i  '*  V  "4  '4  H  '.f  r^  .■ 


.     %    ^    \   4    %    f   i  4    f    f  'i    >!•  .-1    i  ^>  '^  .'t       .  .  .  .  , ,  . 


\  'i  -i    I  'i  t.  *4  '4  '*  i  4  H  '.I  ^  It  ^  4  H  *i  H  !^  ^  '' 

i  •  i  1  ^-  'I  'i-  4  '^  '4  "^i  •I  4-  U  ^4'  -4  i4  :^  %  '<*  "4  '.i : 
>  H  '4  I  '4  ^  'i  i  •#•  i  'i  4  •«  U.  '.i  >i  U-  4 1^  M  * »  ^  ' 

'♦  V  J  •%  'i  \  '4-  '-i  i  '^  '4  A  'i  '4-  *ii  bi  'i  :i  U  ^  .t  4  ..- 

'♦  '4  ^4  '4  ^-  4  -i- 'i ^i  '^  4  S  '^  '-^  ■'••  '^  «*  '^t  '^  ^  '*  '*  '* 

^  i  '4  •  ^  -4  '^.  >  •>  ;4.  *i-  ;^  '4  H  'a  H  w  '^  'i  'i  'sk  H  -^  ii  •; 

^1  '4  -^4  '*  >  '^  >  '4  ;4-  'i-  \<  'i  H  'i  W  \4  H.  -^  U  U  H  w 


<7 It  <1  rfi  * 


II      il     <!     \j     «V     ^     ^i      \Li     *^     li     <l 


«  i  » I  I  t  » 1  rf  1  •  >   ( I  '  .1   •  i    '  .1  •  it  » ;   *  i   •  i    .:".•••  V 


'*  'A  '*  >  'f  H  '■*  H  '^  1  '-♦  '*  ♦  '•♦  *  •*  '•*  •  - .  • 

'*  'I  •*  %  'I  'i  ■*  'i  '*  U  'i  *  y  H  •  J  ,H  'J  U  '^  H 

•i  '*  'I  .'*  '*  **  'i  '-A  'i.  *A  '*  *4  -i  %  **  U  '^  '4  '*  V 


'f  V  '♦  H  '4  *  '<•  4  '*  >  '•*  >  ^  >  ■*  ^  >  >*  ••  » ■♦ 


